site.btaFunding Needed for Personal Assistance Is Being Estimated - Ombusdman

Sofia, June 15 (BTA) - Financial estimates are being made to determine the cost of the Personal Assistance Bill, National Ombudsman Maya Manolova and representatives of protesting mothers of disabled children told journalists Friday. They took part in meetings with Labour and Social Policy Minister Bisser Petkov and experts from his ministry, aimed at discussing the Personal Assistance Bill proposed by Manolova and the People with Disabilities Bill drafted by the Labour Ministry together with representatives of people with disabilities.

The meetings will continue until Tuesday, when a sitting of the National Council for Integration of People with Disabilities will be held.

The Labour Ministry does not have data on the needs of the various groups of people with disabilities who require personal assistance, and this makes the estimates of the financing needed approximate, Manolova said. These people total 80,000 at present, or 77,000 when institutionalized persons are excluded. According to the mothers of disabled children, the people with the most serious disabilities - those who receive a social pension and cannot work - total 10,000.

The easiest thing to do is estimate an average sum and hours of care per person, but this is not the purpose of the Personal Assistance Bill and not what the mothers of disabled children want, because while one person needs constant assistance, another needs several hours, Manolova went on to say. The bill envisages a maximum aid of one and a half minimum wages.

The Labour Ministry is also working on a Social Services Bill at the moment, Manolova recalled, adding that it is unclear how such legislation can be drafted when it is not known what the disabled persons' needs are.

The protesting mothers said that at present, the social assessment is conducted over the phone, without a meeting in person. According to them, everywhere in Europe there is a methodology for social assessment and the Labour Ministry has only to introduce it to make things work. They also said that their tent camps will not be removed until the Personal Assistance Bill is adopted.

Kapka Panayotova, head of the Centre for Independent Living and member of the working group tasked with drafting the People with Disabilities Bill, told reporters that the Labour Minister should receive publicly the Prime Minister's support for the bill. What is needed is a political decision to guarantee the disabled persons' social inclusion, not cosmetic amendments to the law currently in force, she argued. The people with disabilities want this policy to be carried out not by the Social Assistance Agency but by a disabilities agency to which any disabled person in need of social assistance could turn.