Budget prosthetics

The government promises to pay off debts to disabled people and beneficiaries

Amendments to this year's federal budget, approved yesterday at a government meeting, will also allow the authorities to pay off debts to beneficiaries - more than 50 billion rubles. will be aimed at solving social problems. Part of this money will be used, in particular, to eliminate the queue of people wishing to receive sanatorium vouchers and to provide prosthetics and special products for disabled people . “We are now closing a number of debts that have already accumulated. And these are debts not only for the program of additional drug provision,” the Minister of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova explained to reporters the day before the need for additional allocations.

The desire of the new head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development to at least not increase the number of those dissatisfied with the work of her predecessor is quite understandable. The tension with vouchers and prostheses, of course, is not the same as it was at the beginning of the year with free medicines , but hundreds of thousands of Russians are on the waiting lists for both. According to Ms. Golikova, it is proposed to allocate an additional 2.75 billion rubles for sanatorium and resort treatment of beneficiaries, which will allow paying for 125 thousand vouchers by the end of the year. Let us recall that initially the budget of the Social Insurance Fund included 7.075 billion rubles. to pay for vacations and travel to vacation destinations for 450 thousand citizens. Most of them have already received vouchers and completed a rehabilitation course. But the number of applicants exceeded officials' estimates. The FSS believes that the reason for the unexpected shortage of vouchers is the increased confidence of beneficiaries in social insurance offers and the improvement in the quality of sanatorium services . “Several years ago we were “hunting” for people and could not get the required number,” say the fund, whose leaders hope to use additional funds to provide vouchers for almost 600 thousand benefit recipients in 2007.

The Ministry of Health and Social Development intends to allocate an additional 1.25 billion rubles to provide disabled people with technical devices that significantly improve the quality of life.

Initially, the 2007 budget included 6.4 billion rubles, and, therefore, the total allocations for the purchase of prosthetics and wheelchairs increased by 24.8% compared to last year. Both Ms. Golikova and the leaders of the Social Insurance Fund hope that the funds will soften the situation and satisfy the needs of a significant part of disabled people who did not wait for the state to fulfill its obligations in 2006. Since the beginning of 2007, almost 468 thousand people in need have received more than 25.3 million products, including 684 thousand prosthetics and other orthopedic devices, 119 thousand canes, crutches, handrails, 57 thousand wheelchairs.

The failure in provision in 2006 occurred due to bureaucratic confusion during the redistribution of powers. “The social security authorities, which were previously responsible for providing for disabled people, did not provide us with any database,” the Social Insurance Fund explained to Vremya Novostei. Moreover, again, the number of those who officially registered as disabled and turned to the state for help increased by more than 30%. “People felt that some of their problems could be solved, and they began to more actively seek help,” says Galina Karelova. The fund's managers assure that the situation at the end of 2006, when there was a huge queue for auxiliary aids, will not happen again. And the list of provided machinery and equipment has been seriously expanded: it now includes 32 items. Since last year, even a guide dog can be ordered, not to mention digital hearing aids, which are now actively provided to hearing-impaired children. For now, this is a drop in the ocean if we talk about the needs of disabled people in general. But until recent years, the purchase of expensive equipment remained a concern for people with disabilities themselves.

Galina PAPERNAYA