Our executive director Nidhi Goyal was invited to facilitate a training session, ‘Understanding Intersections of Gender and Disability’, for health professionals at a 3-day ToT workshop on 23 July 2025. This ToT workshop was hosted by CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes), in collaboration with KEHAR (KLE Academy of Higher Education & Research), Belagavi for medical educators from five key disciplines: Community Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Psychiatry, Forensic Medicine, and Internal Medicine. 25 participants attended this training along with organising teams.
As disability is often misunderstood in healthcare, Nidhi’s session commenced by challenging the limited frameworks of the medical and charity models or lenses of disability. She urged attendees to rethink disability as shaped not just by impairments, but by inaccessible systems, disabling environments and social attitudes. She highlighted how every sixth person globally is disabled - both visible and invisible disabilities - yet they remain deprioritised in healthcare conversations and spaces.
From inaccessible hospital infrastructure and diagnostic tools to violations of privacy and consent, Nidhi unpacked how women with disabilities are often infantilised, disbelieved, and denied autonomy in medical spaces.
Through case studies, information on global and national laws and policies, and practical implementation suggestions, she equipped participants to further teach and empower their medical students to be sensitive and inclusive practitioners. She emphasised the importance of adopting universal design, engaging directly with persons with disabilities (PWD), and challenging internalised biases. Nidhi called for a shift in mindset - from “fixing” to enabling, from “caring for” to listening and respecting. Medical spaces must become inclusive, accessible, and equitable for all.