Organizations are calling for a reinvestment for people with disabilities

Photo 24 Hours, Nadia Lemieux

Nadia Lemieux

Monday, march 5, 2018 17:02

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Monday, march 5, 2018 17:02

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A grouping of organizations working with persons with disabilities calls for a reinvestment as a major health and social services, deploring the fact that the offer and the quality of care deteriorate for the past 20 years.

The Movement of people with disabilities for access to services (PHAS) on Monday launched the campaign “We are and we want to”.

Until June, a dozen actions will be held to attract the attention of political parties for the elections this fall. The first of them, a walk in a festive, took place on Monday.

The coordinator of the Movement PHAS, Mathieu Francoeur, explained that services for people with disabilities were the victims of a chronic under-funding.

“There are more people who have different needs and fewer resources because there has been a lot of cuts, he argues. There are people who are on waiting lists for accommodation places for years!”

Home support assigned

Persons with disabilities who should have 35 hours of home care per week, according to the assessment of a social worker, sometimes as little as 15, has given the example of Mr. Francoeur. “They can no longer get out of the house. It creates isolation, and it cuts into the activities”, he lamented.

The founding member of the organization Rêvanous and mother of an adult diagnosed with autism, Marjolaine St-Jules, noted that the quality of home care continues to deteriorate.

“[The cuts] lead to burnout and turnover of staff appalling, so that the relationship of trust between the caregiver and the adult, [disabled], are constantly to start again.”

No respite for the families

By lack of support for the families, said Mr. Francoeur, parents must often make great sacrifices.

“Often, parents will miss work or one of the two parents is going to quit his job to be sick or be on leave without pay to care for the children.”

Marie-Josée Dodier is concerned that the organization of the Gang to Rambrou, that his son suffering from intellectual disability is frequent, is called to close through lack of funding.

“It is very important that you can have more money for this service then continues, she said. If it closes, there is a fifty parents who may have to stop working, so it’s been families with disabilities.”