A Nigerian lawyer, Joyce Nnenna Eseni, Esq., has told the 30th Congress of the World Association for Medical Law that Nigeria’s commitment to international instruments and its existing national legislation have not translated into the realisation of the human right to healthcare for persons with disabilities.
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Eseni delivered the presentation on the opening ceremony day of the Congress, which held from 5 to 7 August 2026 in Antwerp, Belgium.
She said that despite the legal architecture in place, access on the ground has not followed.
“Despite Nigeria’s commitment to international instruments and the existence of national legislation, the realisation of the human right to healthcare for persons with disabilities in Nigeria remains limited,” she said.
She explained that disability does not operate in isolation. Disabilities, including sensory impairment covering vision, hearing and speech, physical disabilities, and intellectual or learning disabilities, interact with social, structural and environmental barriers that hinder effective participation in healthcare on an equal basis with others.
Eseni argued that the right to health cannot be separated from the rights that make its exercise possible.
“Several human rights are bound together in practice. One cannot meaningfully deliver healthcare while ignoring a user’s ability to communicate, give informed consent, or be treated with dignity,” she said.
Turning to the domestic framework, she noted that the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act of 2018 established the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities to secure access to healthcare and socioeconomic protections and to advance the rights and wellbeing of persons with disabilities.
That framework, she said, has not displaced the obstacles in practice. Discriminatory attitudes, the absence of sign language interpreters, the absence of Augmentative and Alternative Communication facilitators, and other barriers continue to undermine equal access.
The lawyer located the failure in implementation rather than in the absence of law, and identified the barriers as operating together.
“Weak implementation lets three types of barriers, communication, physical and institutional, take hold at the same time,” she said, adding that the findings reflect an insufficient framework, lack of funding and inadequate provider training, all of which exacerbate inequities.
She said the response cannot be piecemeal.
“Achieving equitable rights-based healthcare for persons with disabilities in Nigeria requires more than addressing individual barriers. It demands confronting their combined and mutually reinforcing effects,” she said.
She continued: “Fixing obvious problems isn’t just about solving one problem at a time. The barriers reinforce each other, so the state needs a combined, joined-up strategy, better enforcement of existing laws, stronger accountability, disability-inclusive healthcare policy, and real training for healthcare workers, with attention to how different types of disability create different overlapping challenges.”
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Eseni said her recommendations were deliberately divided among the arms of government and civil society rather than offered as a single general prescription.
“Recommendations are split by the legislature, judiciary, executive and civil society as actors rather than offered as one general fix. A court cannot fund infrastructure, and a ministry cannot make socioeconomic rights justiciable,” she said.
She closed with the illustration that framed the argument.
“A hospital that admits a deaf patient but provides no interpreter has not actually delivered on the right to healthcare, consent, or dignity. It has delivered only the appearance of care.”
Joyce Nnenna Eseni, Esq., of the NBA Abakaliki Branch, served as Pioneer Head of Legal Services at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, from 2017 to 2026.
She is Assistant Secretary of the NBA Section on Legal Practice (SLP) and 2nd Vice-Chair of the Medicine and Law Committee of the Section, having earlier served as Vice-Chair of that Committee from 2023 to 2025. She is Secretary of the NBA-SLP 2026 Conference Planning Committee and served as NBA Representative (East) on the General Council of the Bar from 2024 to 2026.
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She was a member of the NBA National Executive Committee from 2022 to 2024 and served on the NBA Welfare Committee during the same period. She is currently a member of the General Council of the Bar.
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