In the first 5 months of 2017 every 5th person was not granted disability status: is it a regular practice or arbitrariness?
18:14, June 30, 2017 | News, Own news
Some months ago, persons with disabilities alerted via the mass media that they were not declared persons with disabilities after their regular medical and social expert examination or were decided to be eligible for a lower degree of disability, even though the health problems underlying their disability did not reduced and there were no positive developments in their health.
A number of citizens also turned to HCA Vanadzor. The Organization sent relevant inquiries and assisted them in appealing the Medical and Social Expert Commission’s decisions to upper institutions or before courts of law.
Taking into account the large number of people who complained of the problem, on May 24, 2017 HCA Vanadzor also sent an inquiry to the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs on the number of the persons who applied for disability degree in the first 5 months of 2017, whose disability was recognized as a result of a regular expert examination, who underwent a re-examination and were declared persons with disability as a result.
The Organization also requested information on the grounds for not recognizing a person’s disability as a result of a medical and social expert examination.
As we analyzed the Ministry’s numeric data presented in its response of June 5, 2017, we found an interesting regularity; each 5th person who turned for medical and social expert examination was not declared a person with disability.
Moreover, this regularity also holds true for the numbers of people seeking a regular re-examination and those seeking it for the first time.
Thus, according to the Ministry’s response, the total number of people who applied for disability status and people who underwent a re-examination in January 1-May 24, 2017 is 24,593, of whom 4826 were not granted disability degree. Accordingly, disability was not granted to 3454 of 19,187 persons who sought regular expert examination and to 1114 of 5406 persons who sought it for the first time.
Moreover, the overwhelming majority of those who were not declared persons with disability, namely 3305 persons were formerly granted disability of 3rd degree.
In her response, A. Kesoyan, Head of the Department for Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly, RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, also commented on the grounds for declaring a person as a person with disability. She mentioned that “the fact that a person has a disease is a mandatory, but not a sufficient condition for declaring him/her person with disability.”
And in her recent interview to lragir.am, Anush Simonyan, representative of the Medical and Social Expert Examination Agency, mentioned that rejection of applications for disability status was conditioned by the reforms in that field. According to her, that aimed to assess the needs of persons with disability and provide them later with individual services.
And the Ministry does not comment on the criteria for deciding whether a person is to be granted some disability degree or receive “individual services”.