“We are talking about a matter of human rights and dignity: of the right that my son has to to have their hygiene, to move, to leave the house…. Wait three years It’s a luxury we can’t afford.“. This is the lament of Rocio Martinmother of three children, one of them with infantile paralysis from birth. Albert has a disability 84% and the right to receive aids PUA (provision of social assistance to people with disabilities) that each year is granted by the Generalitat for finance material and services that improve autonomy of people with disabilities in Catalonia. Albert need a stretcher to showera bed articulated and a crane to be able to move it. But for three years the Government neither executes nor resolves these aids. Like him, hundreds of families and organizations raise their hands to their heads: “How is it possible that they do this to us?” Martín wonders.
The family of Albert, a young man with cerebral palsy and an 84% disability, would need an articulated bed and a crane
The Generalitat considers Albert a severely disabled person with a very significant affectation. During the pregnancy, his mother contracted cytomegalovirusa virus that infected the fetus and caused cerebral palsy, in addition to profound bilateral deafness and spastic tetraparesis. “He doesn’t have mobility in his hands or feet. She can’t support her trunk or her head,” explains the mother. She also has significant cognitive impairment. She does not speak nor can she communicate. “We are working so that, with the help of a computer, can you tell us if you are hungryif he’s thirsty… but it’s going to take years,” assumes the mother.
The ‘minister’ Campuzano assures that this year they will resolve and pay the subsidies for 2021, 2022 and 2023
Now the boy is 14 years old and has important needs. “We had to change the wheelchair and now it is difficult for us to get through the door. We need a special stretcher to bathe him, because the hammock we used has become too small for us. It would also be very useful a crane and an articulated bedwe no longer have the strength to move him as before,” explains the mother. But all objects cost a fortune. The stretcher for the shower costs €1,800.
Hundreds affected
In 2021, the family requested a PUA for a portable ramp. “Albert didn’t fit in the car seat anymore, and there was no way to get him in. We bought a van and a ramp for him to enter with the wheelchair… it was the only way we had to take him by car”, says the mother. The ramp cost 6,000 euros. She applied for the grant in June 2021. There has been no response. “I thought that I could recover 2,900 euros, but I still don’t even know if they have accepted it. It is a fortune that we cannot assume,” she explains.
Like her, hundreds of families are in the same situation. “I feel privileged, but there is many families in financial distress who cannot even consider these expenses“, she explains. She and her partner are employed by others who must support two other teenagers.
In 2022, the Generalitat did not allow or process the applications. In October, PSC deputy Raúl Moreno discussed this issue in plenary session of Parliament. “You can imagine the bewilderment of the families, we are talking about elements of extreme necessity,” the socialist complained. The then ‘councilor’, Violant Cervera, assumed that in 2020 only half of the applications processed were accepted “for lack of budget”, but it was promised that at the beginning of 2023 the families would receive the money that the Government owed them. “They can rest easy,” Cervera said. So far, no one has seen a single euro.
“It is very serious”, complains the director of the federation dincat, Victor Galmes. The entity, which until September was led by the current ‘conseller’ of Drets Socials, Carles Campuzano, has already warned of this problem. “It is an essential issue for people with disabilities, who, in most cases, need prostheses to be able to move,” adds Galmés. “It is that we do not even know if the requests that were made have been accepted. We are talking about issues that are more than necessary for the lives of many people,” complains Albert Carbonell, president of the federation ECOMof people with physical disabilities.
twice the budget
The ‘councillor’ Carles Campuzano has promised the entities that this year they will resolve (and pay) the subsidies for 2021, 2022 and 2023, with, in addition, more budget than what was planned. Drets Socials will double the budget, exceeding 5 million eurosand expects to attend 10,000 applications, 6,000 more than in a regular call.
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But the process must be done electronically and with a request for online appointments. “In our sector we have a spectacular digital divide. Who will help them? The entities are oversaturated helping to carry out these procedures,” insists Carbonell.
As of today there is no open process for 2023 either. Albert has stayed no cranewithout space to shower at home… “I have to do hygiene in bed because I can’t do it in the shower“laments the mother.