Women with disabilities and access to gynaecological services in Poland

Abstract

There is little data on the access of women with disabilities to gynaecological services in Central and Eastern Europe, where the shaping of public policies towards disability has been dominated by medical approaches and has not taken into account the complexity and intersectional character of the phenomenon. The aim of the article is to examine the challenges faced by women with disabilities in accessing and using gynaecological care services in Poland. A participatory, qualitative study was conducted, in which 23 women with disabilities participated. The data was collected using structured in-depth interviews. The results suggest that disability causes multilevel difficulties in the access of women to gynaecological care. The misguided organisation of the support system leads to disability-based disparity in health system responsiveness as it lacks the flexibility and responsiveness to meet the special needs of women with disabilities.

Points of Interest

• The aim of the study is to examine the access to and use of gynaecological services by women with disabilities in Poland.

• The study shows that the health care system is not prepared to provide services to women with disabilities.

• Women with disabilities experience infrastructural, mobility, organisational, and communication barriers.

• There are also ethical issues relating to authority and power. The study shows that women with disabilities are often neither fully informed about, nor involved in, decision-making regarding their health.

Keywords:

• Women with disabilities
• gynaecological services
• disability-based disparity
• health system responsiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Thanks for the inspiration of the Kulawa Warszawa Foundation and for supported by grant from National Science Centre, Poland (2018/31/B/HS6/01041).