Brussels, 09/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - Cases of poor care practices for persons with disabilities have multiplied over the past few months, particularly in France, Belgium and Romania. On Thursday 8 May, the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD) responded by calling on the EU institutions to examine the quality of the different kinds of social services provided.
The EASPD response was provoked by two recent events. In Belgium, a heated debate has taken place regarding the high number of French persons with disabilities (around 6,000) who go to Belgium, particularly Wallonia, in order to take advantage of care centres there due to a lack of such services in France. The EASPD explained that “to make the situation even worse, some of these Belgian centres do not have the adequate infrastructure and lack sufficient trained staff to provide the necessary quality service”. The EASPD fears that the problem of the quality provided by these services may be even more widespread in Europe because several cases of abuse have been reported in Romania, especially in two centres which receive European funding.
The EASPD therefore believes that it is now necessary for the European institutions to take action and for the European Parliament to organise a public hearing. The European Commission should also ensure that “structural funds are used to support the transition towards community-based services” by involving NGOs in national operational programmes within the scope of the new cohesion policy. Finally, the Commission should be attentive to be objectives set out in the European strategy for persons with disabilities (2010-2020) in the European semester process. (JK)