Children’s Ombudsman complains of inadequate rehabilitation facilities for disabled children

Anna Kuznetsova has requested regulation of the system of providing rehabilitation facilities for disabled children

24.07.2019

The Commissioner for the Rights of Children under the President of the Russian Federation (RF) Anna Kuznetsova has submitted an official request to the Ministry of Labour concerning the fact that parents of children often complain about the mismatch between the parameters of technical means of rehabilitation (TMR) and reality.

The Children’s Ombudsperson has sent an appeal to Maksim Topilin, the Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, in which she highlighted basic issues in current provision of rehabilitation to disabled children.

Anna Kuznetsova told of how, in the words of parents, the TMR provided often does not correspond to the real demands of children with disabilities as prescribed in doctors’ recommendations.

One of the applicants, for example, explained to the Commissioner for the Rights of Children that her daughter, who has been disabled since birth, has not been able to receive the vital means of rehabilitation she needs for several months. The Prosecutor’s Office explained that the child had been provided with means of rehabilitation, but the family had refused them because the equipment did not fit the required technical specifications and did not fix the position of the child’s head and body correctly.

As it turned out, documents about the purchase of means of rehabilitation in the regional department of the Social Security Fund (SSF) were prepared with violations. As a result, the product did not meet requirements.

“The practical application of Article 11 and 11.1 of the Federal Law ‘On the social protection of disabled people in the Russian Federation’ is complicated because of the lack of regulation at the Federal level of issues on the development and implementation of individual programmes of rehabilitation,” states the Commissioner for the Rights of Children website. “There is no requirement for obligatory provision of the functional characteristics of TMR in the Procedure on the development and implementation of an individual programme of rehabilitation or habilitation for disabled children, as prescribed by foundations of medical social expertise.”

Moreover, the Procedure is not even taken into account in purchases by the SSF. Similarly these issues are not regulated in the Ministry of Labour’s code on the regulation of provision of SSF services for disabled people’s TMR.

In conclusion, gaps in the law are limiting children’s right to health. That is why Anna Kuznetsova is requesting Maksim Topilin review the opportunity for every child with a disability to be able to receive TMR in accordance with their individual needs, and based on doctor’s recommendations.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2019/07/24/kuznetsova-mitrud/

 

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