They decided to appeal to the TAR to have their rights recognised. The fight continues against the Lombardy Region’s cuts to funds dedicated to personal assistants (caregivers) of people with serious and very serious disabilities. This time it is not a new street protest, which would have been the third in a few weeks after the […]
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They decided to appeal to the TAR to have their rights recognised. The fight against cuts continues Lombardy region to funds dedicated to personal assistants (caregivers) of people with serious and very serious disabilities. This time it is not a new street protest, which would have been the third in a few weeks after the flash mob of March 23rd and the demonstration of April 16th in front of the headquarters of the Lombard Regional Council, but it is the decision of 25 national and local associations to proceed legally for “discrimination”.
To travel this further path is the Family Caregiver Committee #b1b2sunkrecently created to better coordinate the mobilization, supported by the lawyer’s office Laura Andrao, expert in the rights of people with disabilities. The Committee did so with the intention of challenging regional resolutions n.1669 of 28 December 2023 and n.2033 of 18 March 2024, both approved by the centre-right majority led by the Northern League president Attilio Fontana. The choice to turn to the TAR, by some organizations made up mostly of parents of people with serious and very serious disabilities, came following the failure of institutional talks between the associations and Pirellone. Contacted by ilfattoquotidiano.it, the lawyer Andrao, who has been legally defending people with disabilities for 15 years and who is supporting this legal action, explains that “the appeal to the TAR will be notified shortly, we are moving to contest a situation of discrimination because a measure to support people with disabilities and their caregivers is no longer guaranteed”. And he adds: “I have never seen a legal action of this type before in Lombardy, we cannot accept that non-self-sufficient people and those who assist them practically 24 hours a day, who are almost always their parents, are affected.”
The choice to take legal action has been a long-standing choice, given that the organizations were evaluating this further option on the occasion of the mobilization on 16 April. Now the associations are raising the bar of protest. “A clarification must be made: the National Plan for non-self-sufficiency (Pnna 2022-2024) to which the Lombardy Region refers has some critical issues, but nowhere does it state that the implementation of direct assistance home services must be implemented by cutting indirect assistance contributions to eligible caregiver beneficiaries. And the only one in Italy that has done so to date is the Lombardy Region,” he says to ilfattoquotidiano.it Fortunato Nicolettivice president of the volunteer organization Nobody is excluded and one of the most relevant voices of the Caregiver Committee, born in the wake of the mobilizations in strong opposition to the cuts expected from 1 June 2024 to measures B1 (very serious disability) and B2 (severe disability).
“The Pnna expressly says that the Leps (essential levels of social benefits) for people with disabilities are guaranteed through the implementation of the enabling law which only saw the release of the latest implementing decree on 15 April. The Lombard resolutions, which were passed earlier, are discriminatory and we as a Committee will challenge them by appealing to the TAR” adds Nicoletti. “What is foreseen is not admissible and, if it passes in Lombardy, very soon it could happen that all the Italian regions are involved and we will no longer be able to say: ‘This thing doesn’t concern us’. The family caregiver is an essential figure who must be valued, because it saves a lot of money every day not only for the Region, but also for the entire Italian State”, all the organizations belonging to the Committee state unitedly. “It cannot be assumed that from June 1st we will be guaranteed services that do not exist today in the face of concrete cuts in fundamental economic resources which are already largely insufficient compared to current needs. In Lombardy there is a lack of specialized nurses for home carein addition to social workers and operators trained to give concrete answers to those in need”, he reports Cristina Finazzi of Spazio Blu Autism Varese which joins the Committee. “We cannot fail to react in the face of this enormous injustice towards the most fragile people, we are forced to turn to the judges to see the rights of our children recognized because their present and future is at stake”, he states Teresa Bellini Confad representative in Lombardy. The details of the appeal will be presented on Monday 27 May at 4pm at the Circolo De Amicis in Milan and a representation of the associations promoting the initiative, together with the lawyer Andrao, will explain the reasons for the appeal and the path that led to this choice. costly for them.
