Disability, aids and subsidies. Petition

The right to a dignified life for people with disabilities requires aids and subsidies that are still lacking in Italy, despite the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

A petition - to which Égalité adheres, with an invitation to all to sign it, al link https://bit.ly/3EL3hhb – and a letter addressed to the President of the Republic and to the Italian government. It is necessary to insist.

1) Disability and discrimination. Premise

Madeleine Milone, the author of the petition, lives in Grosseto the experience of disability following the amputation of a leg. (1) she And she is determined to communicate to the Government the 'very serious discrimination against citizens with disabilities, in the hope that you will listen to us (…) in the hope that concrete solutions can be found quickly'.

The impact of discrimination on the dignity of life completely escape those who do not have direct experience. Being unable to leave the house for weeks, months or years, for example, due to:

aids (e.g. wheelchairs and them scooters trike) and/or inferior or unsuitable prostheses, perhaps subject to frequent failures and delays in repairs or replacements,
inaccessibility of buildings, still widespread among social housing, and lack of funds to guarantee the right to their adaptation by people with disabilities, (2)
inaccessibility of public transport, roads and sidewalks, public and private spaces. THE abatement plans of architectural barriers (PEBA), mandatory by 36 in each Municipality, have not been seen.

2) Letter to the President of the Republic and to the Italian government

The letter it is addressed to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, to the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as well as to the ministries of Disability, Equal Opportunities, Health and Labour.

The petition by title 'The disability does not expire: update the nomenclator and the law 104' has collected about 40 signatures and concerns fundamental human rights that need to be protected urgently.

1 – Aids for the disabled, LEA

The aids for disabilities (e.g. wheelchairs, orthopedic and hearing prostheses, etc.) are subject to coverage, by the ASL, within the spending limits set in the so-called tariff nomenclature. Above these limits, it is the disabled person who has to bear the costs or give up the aid (if even necessary).

The tariff nomenclator still in use but dates back to 1999, at the time of the Italian lira (!). Despite the fact that at the beginning of 2017, almost 6 years ago, a DPCM was published with the 'new' technological devices and essential levels of assistance (LEA). (3) In the meantime, territorial inequalities (between the Regions and the ASL themselves) are getting worse.

2 – Law 104/1992 and law 151/2001

The protection of disabled workers remains unrealistic. Paradoxically, the legislator has limited the rights to special leave and Part-time (for very serious and documented health reasons) to only caregiver (e.g. relatives/parents/children), without providing them for the disabled worker.

Other issues are added, on closer inspection, on which Égalité had at the time started a confrontation with Sen. Steni Di Piazza, at the time v.secretary of the Minister of Labor and Welfare. (4) But the social inclusion of the category more exposed to the risk of poverty out of political priorities.

3 – Economic subsidies

295 euros of civil disability, 525 euros of accompanying allowance is enough to support those who are forced to face additional costs for aids, drugs, medical and nursing assistance, rehabilitation? #Until?

Dario Dongo

Footnotes

(1) Luca Salici. Learning to move again: when online solidarity gives a new life. https://www.articolo21.org/2022/01/imparare-a-muoversi-di-nuovo-quando-la-solidarieta-online-regala-una-nuova-vita/ Article 21 13.1.21

(2) The providential 75% bonus for the removal of architectural barriers was short-lived, now close to expiry. And it has been widely exploited by construction companies and sanitary shops to propose to the general public to redo the bathrooms with floor-level showers, that was enough. Precisely because the government led by Mario Draghi has not restricted access to such bonus the guarantee that the entire apartment is made 100% accessible to people with disabilities (to be submitted for certification by a qualified professional, if the house is not inhabited by a person with disabilities)

(3) DPCM 12.1.17, in the Official Gazette General Series 18.3.17 n. 65

(4) Dario Dongo. Disability and work, meeting with the Undersecretary for Welfare. Egalité. 24.7.20