Press Release, 13.12.2017

The Yabloko party, together with the expert community, prepared programmes to support people with disabilities, terminally ill patients, bedridden patients and members of their families. The projects were developed by leading experts in the field of health care, social protection, lawyers and human rights defenders.

The documents set forth concrete steps to address the problems of seriously ill patients in Russia. Yabloko intends to propose its projects to the State Duma via introducing these initiatives in the legislative assemblies of those regions where Yabloko is represented. Yabloko says that these problems are not isolated: they reflect the general state of health care in Russia and result from the planned reduction of state spending on medicine, healthcare and social development, reorientation of the state budget for military and foreign policy activities. The system and the politics of inhuman indifference to troubles and pain, must be left in the past, the documents run.

Yabloko stresses that adoption of a separate federal law on palliative care, which could provide access to such care to all who need it – regardless of the form of the disease, the location of the patient, or his economic status should be among the most important measures.

The Party intends to ensure the provision of a number of beds for palliative care in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (in general for Russia this is from 9,000 to 14,000 beds), as well as increase the amount of compensation payments up to the subsistence minimum to those caring for disabled family members. The authors of the project emphasise that an alternative should be provided for family members of bed-bound patients whether to stay at work or leave it, devoting all the resources to a sick relative, or to choose a variant of part-time employment.

Other measures proposed by Yabloko envisage allocation of targeted grants to charitable organisations working for disabled people and bedridden patients of retirement age, preservation of benefits for the disabled, in particular, a 50 per cent discount on housing and utilities bills for disabled people.

Yabloko insists that introduction of new criteria making it harder to recognize a persons disable and thus reducing budget expenditures on the disabled.

It is also necessary to develop and implement federal and regional comprehensive programmes for the prevention of disability (children’s disability in the first place), and create in each region of Russia modern equipped centres for postoperative rehabilitation.

Yabloko also envisage special measures for creation an accessible environment for the disabled.

According to Yabloko, about 1.4 million people die in Russia each year, of which 300,000 die from cancer; 520,000 from other chronic diseases. In more than 85 per cent of deaths, patients lack the relief of severe symptoms of incurable diseases and need qualified care.

The figures characterising the attitude of the state to people with disabilities are not optimistic either. Thus, almost 48 per cent of people with disorders of the musculoskeletal system have to deal with barriers when shopping; 66 per cent of people with sight disabilities speak about the difficulties in using or completely inaccessible sports facilities and recreation places, 50 per cent of people with visual impairments and musculoskeletal problems face problems with accessibility of medical institutions.

135,000 families of people with disabilities need to improve their housing conditions today. Only a third of Russians with disabilities of working age have a permanent job.

“These problems are an integral part of the lives of millions of families in Russia,” says Alexander Gnezdilov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and one of the initiators of the project. “These problems may refer to any of us tomorrow.” The President, the government, the parliament have no time, no money, no sincere interest for these painful issues – too much money goes to wars, theft and the self-promotion”.

According to Gnezdilov, Yabloko has been working on these projects for over six months, but this is only the beginning of a big process. The task of Yabloko is to make these issues a budget priority.

“The Russian Constitution runs that no one should be subjected to torture, violence, cruel or degrading treatment,” says Elena Morozova, lawyer and one of the authors of the projects. “A person should not experience physical pain, fear, should not feel helpless and defenseless when sick or dying. And the task of the state is to provide such conditions”.

“When it comes to human life, its quality – every day and until the last day – there can be no compromise. Everything should be done,” Olga Demicheva, one of the main initiators and authors of the programs, doctor and specialist in palliative care, says “Both of the Yabloko projects are comprehensive and accurately identify the problems of terminally ill people and disabled people. But the main thing is that concrete measures are indicated to solve these problems. ”

Yabloko intends to seek implementation of these measures through introduction of bills in the State Duma via Legislative Assemblies of Russian regions where the party is represented, Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova notes.

“Our programme of actions is very detailed. We are ready to develop legislative initiatives on its basis,” Emilia Slabunova says. “But whether deputies from the ruling party will vote for them or not will show their true face. In our country, almost 12.5 million people live very hard and poorly, and are constantly overcoming difficulties. This is the pain and shame of modern Russia”.