Reynaldo Montoya, health messenger for Special Olympics Germany (SOD), spoke at the World Health Summit 2022 on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities to make health systems around the world more inclusive.
The World Health Summit 2022 is an international forum for global health. It takes place annually in Berlin and brings together stakeholders from politics, science, the private sector, and civil society from around the world.
Discussions and deliberations took place in 50 sessions, with 300 speakers and 6000 participants from 100 nations.
As part of this, a meeting titled "Reimagining Health Systems to Leave No One Behind" was held.
Our SOD Health Ambassador Reynaldo Montoya was invited to actively participate as a speaker. His contribution provided an important opportunity to have the health concerns of people with intellectual disabilities heard at the international and health policy levels.
Montoya reported on what is working well in the health care of people with disabilities in Germany and what needs to be improved. For this he presented his wishes and ideas for change, which were among others:
- That doctors, caregivers and families receive more training and support in Easy English and dealing with people with impairments. Many doctors and professionals do their best, but do not get the necessary knowledge in their studies and training.
- That Easy English is also used more on information sheets or sickness certificates.
- That health insurance companies should sit down with people with disabilities and discuss what kind of services people with disabilities would like to receive.
Reynaldo Montoya is happy about a very successful event and hopes to meet many participants also at the Special Olympics World Games and to present our Healthy Athletes® health program to them there.
