Particular concern is expressed for the umpteenth time by our fellow human beings who face some form of disability, or are confined to a wheelchair and while their disability is obvious, which in many cases is in fact congenital, they are nevertheless called for re-evaluations, delaying their various requests, with the most important fact, to delay the granting of their basic benefits.
After all, the recent Law passed on the assessment of persons with disabilities by the competent agencies was clear, since it specifically provides that a person who has been certified by the Disability Assessment Committee as having a permanent or irreversible disability without the possibility of rehabilitation or improvement or a person with a congenital disability, not to be invited by the committee in question to re-evaluate his disability. Additionally, there is an express obligation for the persons who make up the committee in question to declare to the person under assessment their identity, specialty and profession.
The alarm bells were sounded in statements he gave to b>REPORTER, the president of the Confederation of Disabled People's Organizations (KYSOA), Christakis Nikolaidis, to emphasize that people with disabilities and their Organizations are concerned about the possibility of incorrect implementation of the Legislation which amended the Minimum Guaranteed Income Law, which the House of Representatives recently voted. “We note that, based on the law, an end has been put to the arbitrary and unwarranted re-evaluations of persons with disabilities who were approved as severely disabled by the evaluation committee operating in the Department of Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities”.
It is noted that, with the intervention of the competent Parliamentary Committee of the Parliament, a barrier was put in the effort that started from last March, to remove from the state the right to call people with disabilities for evaluation, again and again, until it finds points that they will help end benefits and save resources for the state.
It is no coincidence, Mr. Nikolaidis continued, “that our country is in the last positions among the member states of the European Union, in terms of various indicators in the policy concerning people with disabilities, such as the percentage of social benefits that concern them, on the total of social benefits in our country which is at the limit of 4% (third from the end), the poverty line which is at 35% (again third from the end) the percentage of people with disabilities who do not have the necessities of life (second from last before Bulgaria), the percentage of people with disabilities receiving benefits that does not exceed 15% of all people with disabilities, the participation rate of people with disabilities and their integration into the community”.
Percentages, which of course are not honorable at all for our state, while at the same time in recent years a titanic effort has been made by several organizations for the rights of the disabled. Moreover, as Mr. Nicolaidis clarified, “the provisions of the new legislation are very important for people with disabilities, since re-evaluation is only allowed in the event that a person submits the same application for additional services or benefits due to the worsening of his disability or when there is a written report to the competent services that in some case the person receiving any benefit or service does not have a disability”.
Of particular importance, however, for the Confederation, is the provision that exists that persons congenital disability, they do not need to appear before the committee, but it will be sufficient to present a certificate from a specialized institution.
On the same wavelength, however, is the President of OPAK, Dimitris Lambrianidis, who characteristically stated that, “the most serious problem with the E.E.E. is the fact that it includes in the incomes of the disabled applicant, any incomes the husband or wife has, which we consider unfair, anachronistic and the state should already move and amend the law, especially for people with disabilities”.< /p>
However, as we were informed, the Confederation of Organizations of the Disabled, is not going to remain with its hands crossed, as it receives various complaints from people with disabilities every day and that is why it will send relevant letters next week, to the relevant state agencies.
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