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Endless waiting lists, halved budgets: Flanders violates the rights of people with disabilities. This is what the Flemish Human Rights Institute (VMRI), founded this year, said in an initial recommendation, De Standaard reported on Friday.
Source: BELGA
Today at 6:16 am
Although Belgium has signed the United Nations Convention on People with Disabilities, Flemish policy does not adhere to the provisions in the text. The VMRI is keen on the way in which the personal budget for people with disabilities is applied. “I hope this will wake up the government,” said David Stevens, the director of the VMRI, in the newspaper.
With such a personal budget, people with disabilities purchase the care they need. Experts determine the size of their budget based on how needy someone is. The person then ends up on the waiting list. Today it has 17,172 people waiting. “And that is too much,” says Stevens. The VMRI insists that Flanders make more money available to eliminate the waiting list. “The financing mechanism must be adequate and offer people legal certainty. Now their rights are being mortgaged.”
According to human rights organization Grip vzw, there is a need for around 540 million euros to give everyone on the waiting list what they are entitled to. Some people have been waiting for twenty years, others saw their promised budget shrink. They are also not given any timing as to when they will actually receive the money, VMRI criticizes.