When a child has a problem of almost any kind, the first person parents go to for help is their doctor. How that doctor handles the situation can influence the family’s ability to accept what may be a lifelong challenge and an opportunity for growth.

For parents, a diagnosis that their child has a disability is cataclysmic. Nothing can adequately prepare them for that moment of truth, even if they have suspected it for weeks or months beforehand. How the doctor breaks the news is of particular importance. Years later, most parents can still recount, almost word for word, exactly what was said, exactly where they stood and what the light was like when they got the news that changed their world forever.

Busy doctors, distracted by the line of patients in the waiting room and over-burdened with pressing demands on their time, may not adequately appreciate the importance of what they say and how they say it. 

While an important focus of the awareness campaign is getting doctors to understand the crucial nature of early identification and intervention, an even more critical foundation goal is to help doctors think about the emotional turmoil disability creates in a family. Because early intervention is for parents too.

When a person has to be hospitalized, it is often the nurses she remembers best. While the doctors are important, it is the nurses who minister to a patient’s everyday needs. Frequently, in-between changing bandages, adjusting pillows and doling out medicines, they also find the time to listen to a person’s fears and worries. They counsel, reassure and explain. They carry messages to the doctor and then seek out the families to report what was said.

Here in India, nurses are still struggling to be seen and respected as professionals.  The Latika Roy Foundation, recognizing the important role that nurses can play both in education and in healing, has begun an outreach program to nurses in both private and government hospitals. In a series of on-going training seminars, we are working with nurses to increase their knowledge, confidence and self-esteem. Specifically, we want nurses to be quicker to spot developmental delays in children who come to immunization clinics and proactive in their approach to parents about the need for early intervention. But at the same time, we want to support nurses in their own struggle for equity and respect. Because the health care system can only deliver if its professionals are in good health themselves.