On Wednesday, in Alba Iulia, the personal assistants of people with disabilities protest against the legislative abuses to which they are subjected

“Homo, homini lupus” (meaning “Man is wolf to man”) are the words with which Plautus characterizes the wild, unappeased greed that turns some men into beasts to their fellows.

This is felt by many of those who, having sick family members and asking for help from the state, through the general directions of social assistance patronized by the county authorities, receive indifference, disinterest, documents and justifications for the inhumane behavior to which both the sick and their family are subjected.

Personal experience with the great Commission of the General Directorate of Social Assistance White, which determines the seriousness of a person’s illness and the degree of disability in which he falls, proved to me that all the complaints I received from readers on this topic are real.

The commission came, stayed on the clock for three minutes, asked the sick man his name, and because he was lucid and could stand up supported, they considered that he could walk alone, unaided. So they left satisfied that they saved the state money!

You know, that money from our taxes that flows into various businesses and homes. The patient, not benefiting from a personal assistant, fell in the house: femur fracture followed by a rapid deterioration of his already fragile state of health (but considered by the DGASPC Alba commission to be good, so that the patient is able to take care of himself), which culminated in less than 4 months with death!

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The authorities, this time the central ones, continue to save state money on the backs of the sick and those who care for them, namely the assistants of the disabled. They removed the position of personal assistant to the person with disabilities from the occupational family “Health and social assistance” as well as from Annex II of GEO 19/2024. This means less money for the assistants of disabled people who are not professionals employed by the general social assistance departments patronized by the county councils, but are personal assistants of disabled people employed by the social assistance departments of the town halls. What’s the difference? Well, the word “professional”.

That is, those who are not professionals are, as a rule, members of the sick’s families. That’s if the commission I wrote about above wants it! Often they give up their services and rely on earning as an employee personal assistant to the disabled person to provide the sick person with care, medicines that are not compensated, house, food…

Relying on the fact that these non-professional personal assistants are family members, the state, through its politicians and royally paid employees, thought that they could save money on the poor, as long as they would not throw the family of the sick out on the street , but they will take care of them anyway! And it worked for them for many years! But how moral is this behavior?

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Especially in conditions where, at the top, in the occupational family “Health and social assistance” are all the functions of the DGASPCs and, of course, all of them, including the chiefs and mint scrubbers, benefit from substantial salary increases, while the assistants of the persons disabled non-professionals received at the last salary increase since the beginning of the year, the one with 5%, the fabulous amount of 8 lei!

With the knife to the bone, the non-professional disabled assistants from Alba are protesting on Wednesday, in Alba Iulia, in front of the Prefect’s Institution – Alba County, from 11.00 am. They also protest against decision 23/2023 of the ÎCCJ which, at the request of the management board of the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal, eliminated the right to a raise for difficult working conditions of assistants to people with disabilities, even if they take care of people classified as severely disabled !

The authorization to protest was requested and obtained for 50 people, but the organizers are somewhat skeptical that they will gather that many because “colleagues are afraid to protest for fear of having their employment contracts cancelled!”.

The Romanian state and its institutions are humiliating, aren’t they?