In September 2021 the Polish President Andrzej Duda declared that he is aware of the need for a law that will guarantee access to personal assistance for citizens who need it. The group of experts which is responsible for preparing the draft of an act consist of academic scholars in the field of social sciences and the representatives of the Chancellery of the President. Neither the representatives of the Disabled People organisations nor any individual PA users were appointed to be the group members. For two and half a year the stage of work upon the draft remained silent to the disability community and for the public opinion. Even for the Ministry of Family Matters and Social Affairs. It is worth mentioning that although the Ministry has the same very conservative background as the President, the proposals of the PA system of the further are quite coherent with the CRPD and General Comment 5. Also, the Ministry organised a cross-country yearly pilotage of the proposed PA scheme as well as regular consultations with the PA users.
A couple of weeks ago, the basic thesis of the presidential draft was publicly presented. on slides. It has not been published, what is the serious violation of the CRPD. According to it, the PA user will receive the law for a maximum of 100 hours of the service in a month. Persons under 18 years old will be excluded for the right to use PA guarantee by the law. They will have to use temporary projects, as nowadays. The assessment of the user’s needs will be made by the certified career counselors, The assistants will not be allowed to perform any support described as “medical”, for example to perform an injection or change the bandage. The mechanism of personal budget was not even mentioned.
We cannot agree on the proposed solutions. This is why we were protesting in front of the Presidential Palace last Saturday.
Our demands are:
- the PA law proposal which is coherent with the CRPD and General Comment 5;
- the full cooperation between the Chancellery of the President, and the Ministry of Family Matters and Social Affairs in preparing the PA law;
- the real process of consultations of the law draft with the disabled persons organisations;
- the urgent meeting of the PA users and their supporters delegation with the President Andrzej Duda.
Nothing about us without us!
Article provided by Lukasz Orylski –
