site.btaMothers of Disabled Children Hold Protest in Sofia ahead of EU Social Policy Forum
NW 11:19:31 27-06-2018
LN1119NW.105
105 POLITICS - DISABLED CHILDREN - LEGISLATION - PROTEST
Mothers of Disabled Children Hold Protest
in Sofia ahead of
EU Social Policy Forum
Sofia, June 27 (BTA) - To make their voices heard, mothers of disabled children held yet another protest rally Wednesday, this time outside Sofia's NDK convention centre where an international social policy forum was about to begin. It is one of the events on the calendar of the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council and media presence is expected to be considerable. The protesting mothers insist that the Bulgarian government should genuinely address the dire straits of disabled people instead of "patting its own back for reaching celestial heights in disability care", to use the words of one of the protesting mothers, Kristina Nikolaeva.
The mothers were handing out leaflets which compare the government policy for disability care in Bulgaria and other European countries. They show that most European countries set a per-person budget for personal care which disabled people or their parents manage themselves; disabled people hire a personal assistant for as long as one is needed to be able to go out, study or work despite the disability; and the parents of disabled children can choose when they need a personal carer to make time for work and being able to live a normal life.
The leaflet says that in Bulgaria real personal care is nonexistence and is limited to short-term EU-supported programmes which donТt even cover half of the disabled people and pay for personal care for an average of 2-3 hours a day.
The mothers say this is far from enough and disabled children and their care-giver remain isolated in their homes for life.
They recall that the monthly allowance was recently upped but only for children with over 90 per cent disability while most have under 90 per cent disability. What is more, children with under 70 per cent disability, which make the biggest group of some 26,000, had their allowance reduced to finance the increase for the over-90 per cent disability group.
Disabled people aged over 18 don't even get a third of the care allowance of children, have no personal carer and no money for medicines. All they have is 235 leva which is usually the entire income for two: the disabled adult and his mother or other care-giving family member.
Kristina Nikolaeva said that talks with the Labour and Social Policy Minister on Tuesday were fruitless.
The mothers proposed restructuring of the Social Assistance Agency (SAA) to set up local units to work with the disabled people rather than the SAA itself. They also suggested that a bill on personal care - which was tabled by the National Ombudsman with the support of the mothers but was rejected by the power-holders as offering only piecemeal solutions - be integrated into two other bills prepared by the Labour Ministry: on social services and on people with disabilities.
The Ministry insists that the SAA should remain in charge of disabled people but the mothers won't have that and are back to their initial position that only a special law on personal care can address their woes. LN/
//
LN1119NW.105
105 POLITICS - DISABLED CHILDREN - LEGISLATION - PROTEST
Mothers of Disabled Children Hold Protest
in Sofia ahead of
EU Social Policy Forum
Sofia, June 27 (BTA) - To make their voices heard, mothers of disabled children held yet another protest rally Wednesday, this time outside Sofia's NDK convention centre where an international social policy forum was about to begin. It is one of the events on the calendar of the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council and media presence is expected to be considerable. The protesting mothers insist that the Bulgarian government should genuinely address the dire straits of disabled people instead of "patting its own back for reaching celestial heights in disability care", to use the words of one of the protesting mothers, Kristina Nikolaeva.
The mothers were handing out leaflets which compare the government policy for disability care in Bulgaria and other European countries. They show that most European countries set a per-person budget for personal care which disabled people or their parents manage themselves; disabled people hire a personal assistant for as long as one is needed to be able to go out, study or work despite the disability; and the parents of disabled children can choose when they need a personal carer to make time for work and being able to live a normal life.
The leaflet says that in Bulgaria real personal care is nonexistence and is limited to short-term EU-supported programmes which donТt even cover half of the disabled people and pay for personal care for an average of 2-3 hours a day.
The mothers say this is far from enough and disabled children and their care-giver remain isolated in their homes for life.
They recall that the monthly allowance was recently upped but only for children with over 90 per cent disability while most have under 90 per cent disability. What is more, children with under 70 per cent disability, which make the biggest group of some 26,000, had their allowance reduced to finance the increase for the over-90 per cent disability group.
Disabled people aged over 18 don't even get a third of the care allowance of children, have no personal carer and no money for medicines. All they have is 235 leva which is usually the entire income for two: the disabled adult and his mother or other care-giving family member.
Kristina Nikolaeva said that talks with the Labour and Social Policy Minister on Tuesday were fruitless.
The mothers proposed restructuring of the Social Assistance Agency (SAA) to set up local units to work with the disabled people rather than the SAA itself. They also suggested that a bill on personal care - which was tabled by the National Ombudsman with the support of the mothers but was rejected by the power-holders as offering only piecemeal solutions - be integrated into two other bills prepared by the Labour Ministry: on social services and on people with disabilities.
The Ministry insists that the SAA should remain in charge of disabled people but the mothers won't have that and are back to their initial position that only a special law on personal care can address their woes. LN/
//
news.modal.header
news.modal.text