People with disabilities can apply for a new support benefit from the new year, which they can decide about spending themselves. This consequently leads to benefits overlapping and the need for reimbursement. – We should go in a direction that will finally allow Poland to pass a law on assistance for people with disabilities, something we have been waiting for for many years – said Katarzyna Heba, vice-president of the Helen Keller Foundation, on TVN24. She also believes that MP Iwona Hartwich's review that the situation of people with disabilities has improved at the expense of carers “is simply unfair and unjust”.
– Poland ratified the convention UN on the rights of people with disabilities in 2012 and is obliged to comply with it. It concerns people with disabilities, not their carers – said Katarzyna Heba, vice-president of the Helen Keller Foundation, member of the Equal Treatment Commission at the Supreme Bar Council, on TVN24 in response to a question about the review by MP Iwona Hartwich of the new regulations allegedly the improvement in the situation of people with disabilities has come at the expense of their caregivers.
This is about a support benefit, which is a new type of financial assistance for people with disabilities, which came into force on 1 January 2024. People who are eighteen years of age or older can apply for it. After it is granted, the disabled person has the right to decide how to use the money received. However, granting a support benefit simultaneously excludes receiving previously due assistance, i.e. care benefit, special care allowance and carer's allowance received by carers.
– I disagree with this review for a very simple reason. It is simply dishonest and unfair – said Iwona Hartwich.
The solution is assistance for people with disabilities
– New regulations that were passed under the previous government (government PIS – ed.) are not perfect and we all know that. They should be amended and improved. However, we cannot say that they are unfair – said Katarzyna Heba. As she added, a person with disabilities is a person who has subjectivity. – However, a carer cannot be treated equally with a person with disabilities just because it was decided in the family that we apply for a support benefit and waive the care benefit – she assessed.
In response to the voices appearing in the public sphere that the support benefit marginalizes the role of the caregiver for people with disabilities, Katarzyna Heba strongly denies that this is the case – The regulations that are currently in force absolutely do not marginalize the role of the caregiver. Quite the opposite. They support people with disabilities. This benefit is dedicated to a person with a disability. Benefits should go to the person who needs them. If a caregiver decides that they want to receive a care benefit, they do not have to receive the support benefit – she explains.
– In my opinion, further changes to the law should go in such a direction that a person with disabilities has the right to decide about themselves and their life. And whether they want their mother or father to take care of them or not. But they should also take care in the sense that they receive a care benefit, not a support benefit – Heba believes.
– We should go in a direction that will finally allow Poland to pass a law on assistance for people with disabilities, something we have been waiting for for many years – she emphasizes. She adds that the introduction of this solution was promised by both the previous and the current government – headed by Deputy Minister Krasoń (Government Plenipotentiary for People with Disabilities in the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy – ed.) – And so far there is no draft law. And I believe that the introduction of assistance for people with disabilities will allow for an independent and self-reliant life – she emphasized.
Refund of benefits in the event of their overlap
The aftermath of this discussion is information that carers of people with disabilities are currently receiving a request to return previously paid benefits. On this matter, MP Anna Dąbrowska-Banaszek wrote a parliamentary interpellation. “This amendment has caused a situation in which “after granting a person with disabilities this new benefit (support benefit – ed.) and payment, their carers receive a request to return previously paid benefits – from the date of receipt of the support benefit by the person they care for” – we read.
“The carers (of people with disabilities – ed.) are often parents of retirement age who have suspended their pensions in order to receive, for example, a care benefit (as it is often higher than the pension calculated for them)” – explains MP Anna Dąbrowska-Banaszek. She adds that “in a situation where their ward receives a support benefit, they must submit an application for payment of the pension, but they receive it on time after submitting the application, without the possibility of retroactive payment” – she points out. As she argues, “carers usually do not have the funds accumulated that would allow them to return these amounts – they spent the funds received on current needs”.
Katarzyna Nowakowska, Deputy Minister of Family, Labor and Social Policy, in response to the above interpellation explains that “if a person with a disability receives a support benefit with compensation for the period for which their carer has already received a care benefit, they will be obliged to return this care benefit”. As she emphasizes, “in such a situation, the person with a disability may, if they so wish, use the compensation received to return the care benefits paid to the carer for the same period”.
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