Support or care benefit – this is the choice that carers and disabled people now face. The former ask about changes in the regulations that now exclude their right to receive a care benefit when a disabled person receives their own support benefit. There are many questions, doubts and concerns. Material by Aleksandra Kąkol from the magazine “Poland and the World”.
– My disabled child is my son, 24 years old, who requires complete care – says Mrs. Maja Iwińska, she started working, and her husband takes care of her son. For now, but she lives with stress that from one day to the next she will take over these duties and will be left without funds.
New regulations
Support benefit is a new type of financial assistance for people with disabilities and their carers, which came into force on 1 January 2024. It is paid Social Insurance Institution. People who are eighteen years of age or older can apply for it. Once it is granted, the disabled person has the right to decide how to use the money they receive. However, granting a support benefit simultaneously excludes receiving the assistance they were previously entitled to, i.e. care benefits, special care allowance and carer's allowance.
According to the parliamentary interpellation submitted by MP Anna Dąbrowska-Banaszek on the consequences for a carer resulting from the payment of a support benefit for a person with disabilities, this amendment has led to a situation in which “after granting a person with disabilities this new benefit (support benefit – ed.) and payment, their carers receive a request for the return of previously paid benefits – from the date the support benefit is received by the person they care for,” we read.
– The Act on Support Benefits prevents parents from returning to the care benefit, because parents can only receive the care benefit until they are 18 years old and can earn extra money on top of that care benefit – Ms Maja emphasised.
– A disabled adult can apply for this support benefit, but when they apply for it, the parent is simply left without any income of their own. And for example, now, colloquially speaking, I would be supported by a disabled child, which is absurd, because my son would have to pay for an assistant, rehabilitation, and unfortunately there would simply be no money left for my support – said Maja Iwińska.
A problem for many families
This is a problem for many families, and now that the new benefit has been granted, their caregivers are being asked to return the money they previously paid.
The MP draws attention to this in her interpellation. PIS Anna Dąbrowska-Banaszek and adds that these are often people of retirement age who have given up pensions.
In response, Deputy Minister of Family Katarzyna Nowakowska says directly that the money is not due if the person requiring care has already been granted a support benefit. This is determined by ZUS from the month in which the application was submitted, not when the decision was made. The money must be returned for this time.
“A great injustice”
– The Act on the support benefit, although it was going in a very good direction, because it protects a person with a disability, but you cannot do something at the expense of something else, and here we have an example where the state, or rather the PiS management, gave a support benefit to a person with a disability and took away the care benefit from the parent – said Iwona Hartwich from the Civic Coalition.
The regulations were passed during the PiS era as a response to protests. Even then, MP Iwona Hartwig abstained from voting, counting on Senate amendments.
– I consider this to be a huge injustice, because we cannot help people with disabilities at the expense of their caregivers. We can no longer afford to marginalize the institution of the caregiver, because we do not send these children to centers, to nursing homes, we continue to take care of them – said the MP.
Often after the age of eighteen they need even more care.
Will there be changes?
When the regulations came into force, they were criticized by the Secretary of State, the Plenipotentiary for the Disabled, Łukasz Krasoń. He wrote about a gun to the head, about a huge rush and a lack of social consultations. He feared that they would condemn thousands of people to poverty. Later, he said the same thing.
– It is very important that we can decide on our own how we will spend these funds – he emphasized in a video prepared by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy.
Because six months after the act came into force, Łukasz Krasoń became the government's plenipotentiary for disabled people.
For now, the deputy minister has not found time for us, but he has already assured us that he would like to improve the act. – We will work on improving this act – he said in December 2023.
It's the government Donald Tusk in 2014 decided to significantly increase the care benefit. Families are now appealing to restore it for everyone.
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