Healthcare Ministry representatives regularly report that from year to year handicaps see positive transformations in their lives.  The government develops new programs for handicaps, new services, as well as new adaptation centers and what not. However, how reflective of reality are those optimistic statements? Let us dive deeper.

Better Something Than Nothing

Volunteers helping handicaps report that in the past several years, our public governance did take the steps to lift up the living standards for handicaps. 

In May 2019, for example, the Government approved the 2019-2025 National Plan of Protection of Rights and Improvement of Living Conditions for Handicaps.  By that plan, some technical services and rehabilitation services are rendered on the free-of-charge basis.   Some of handicaps receive wheelchairs, others have their voice processors, as well as various implants renewed.

Starting from 1 January, the Government pays them increased allowances.  The additional amount if modest, of course, but better something than nothing.  In 2022, the amount of an allowance would be KZT 52,345, now it is KZT 56,794. If we are looking at a family with five children, the allowance will not be KZT 69,138 instead of KZT 63,728.

In additional to the financial aspect, the plan is inclusive of 95 other services – free medical consultations for adults and children, as well as special assistance points and offices for handicapped children.  The Government, also, undertook to financially support handicapped children and juveniles, until they complete their education.

We Do Deliver

Government has the plans to bring to order the legislation to better protect handicaps and build social infrastructure for them.

Various public polls show that in the last decade numerous wheelchair ramps were built in public governance institutions and other buildings.  There is a lot more to achieve, but, still, the process was kicked-off.

In general, Kazakh society developed tolerance and easier attitude to people requiring special attention and care.

The only thing left now, is for our citizens to develop the emotional intelligence to interact with children with special psychological constitution.  In academic institutions, such children, as a rule, face problems with settling-in and integration into the collective and the academic process.

Happily, we are seeing more inclusive schools, hobby-circles and touristic centers, that help handicapped children socialize and enjoy the full-fledged life.  In line with enumerated achievements, there are, still, problems, that appear far from solving.

Death as a Prospect

Handicaps need not only wheel chairs and ramps, but also proper legal and social protection.  Problems emerge, when handicapped children turn older, and their parents grow older, as well.

The first complication:  process of legal registration of the right of own child custody. For that, a court must acknowledge such a child legally incompetent.  That takes time, collection of numerous documents, including financial solvency reports.  On one side, that is a good thing, to verify information, but sometimes, the whole process appears as open humiliation and harassment.

The second complication:  how unwed mothers are supposed to take care of their grown-ups, because they are accustomed to take care of their children since the very birth?  Who will take care of those person, after their parents die? Of course, there are special asylums for such persons, but admission is one different question. 

Another “epic story” is the employment opportunities for parents of children with special requirements.  Kazakh legal practice offers examples of situations, when parents lost their jobs, because of necessity to take care of their children.  Such families have to survive, having only social allowances the government pays to support handicaps.  In addition to that problem, such families must think how to pay for medical examinations, clinical treatment and rented flats, if they have to take those children to other cities.

Legal and human rights activists think that to prevent the above problems, parents of handicaps should be recognized as social workers with appropriate salaries and earlier retirement, because of necessity to take care of children in the non-stop regime, such parents cannot make money, in parallel. 

By our legislation, handicaps, of course are in the position to demand nurses, but finding a private nurse is a big problem, especially in provinces.  A potential nurse may easily reject a proposal, of a child lives too far or simply she or he does not wish to take care of a handicap.  Besides, the cost of special nursing services is high.

There is a resolution – special centers.  But the trick is that such centers, may, primitively, have no free space and resources and assets to be able to admit a child.  To be admitted, a handicap may have to wait for another handicap to die.

Homeless?

Handicaps are the immediate victims of the dwelling problem, even when they wait on their turn to receive a social flat from Government. 

A Kazakh lady reported to us that her 4-year son was the 3,000^th in a dwelling row.  The boy will be officially registered as a handicap, when he turns 16.  If by that time, his turn to receive a free flat does not come, he will, once again, have to register and wait.  That means that he will put in the back of the queue and will have to wait again.

Custodians cannot solve that problem, by asking a loan from a bank to buy a flat, because banks do not recognize social allowances as incomes.  Thus, many such families, who cannot afford to buy flats, have to travel from one rented apartment to another.  All these problems may only be solved by the Government, but the Government appears to have poor understanding of reality.