March of the ministers

Image Source: JNS

The parade of politicians paying their respects to Aleh and ADI has been nothing short of disgraceful. 

We saw Yoav Galant, Minister of Education; Yuli Edelstein, Minister of Health; President Reuven Rivlin; Knesset members Haim Katz and Etti Attia trotted out by Doron Almog in recent weeks. They all dutifully parroted the PR team's fulsome praise of Adi - Nahalat Eran.

Not to be outdone by Almog, his ex-partner, Rabbi Yehuda Marmorstein, collared Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich who visited his Bnei Brak branch where he extolled Aleh. (True, he's a low-ranking celeb but Aleh appears to be trailing ADI in every realm of the PR competition. Its websites and Facebook pages are all still out-of-action.)

A logical conclusion after that Ministers' March would be that our government still just doesn't get it. It is incapable of grasping what the rest of the world realized years ago: that institutionalization injures and violates the human rights of individuals with disabilities.

But here is a touch of encouraging news. Our Ministry of Justice has just taken a stance against institutionalization. It is urging residents of institutions and their families to share their tales of woe. The goal is to enable the Ministry's intervention on their behalf.

Bizchut, Israel's Center for the Human Rights of People with Disabilities, has circulated the Ministry's new questionnaire which covers abuse, neglect and other human rights violations.

Here is Bizchut's Whatsapp memo to its supporters (translated from Hebrew by me):

"Residents of institutions and hostels and their families: It is time for you to make your voices heard! You have contacted us - at Bizchut - many times with disturbing accounts of the situations in institutional frameworks. Generally you reach us after failing to receive an appropriate response from the Ministry of Welfare. We have flooded the Ministry of Justice with these difficulties and following our pleas, the Ministry has disseminated a questionnaire aimed at examining how to enhance the protection of people with disabilities living in institutions. 
!! It is important that the maximum number of people log in and portray the conditions in institutions! Please spare a few minutes to answer the questionnaire, and also forward it further...
Please note - there are separate questionnaires for residents (which must be returned by 30/1) and for families (which must be returned by 20/1). All questionnaires are at the bottom of the page in the link.

The version for residents is in simple language and is 20 pages long. Here are a few sample questions:

How would you like to answer the questionnaire?
I would like to answer the questionnaire without writing my name:
I would like to write my name (write your name here):
Which sort of disability do you have? -

mental, developmental or cognitive

emotional (mental health)

autism

physical disability (in movement)

hearing disability (deafness or hearing impaired

visual disability (blindness or serious visual impairment)

I don't want to answer

Other disability (write here which):

And here is how the Ministry described its new effort:

"As part of the work we do in the social cluster of the Advice and Legislative Department of the Ministry of Justice, we are examining ways of improving our involvement, and where necessary the protection of people with disabilities who reside in out-of-home frameworks, with an emphasis on the means of presenting complaints and their investigation."

I am so thankful every day that our Haya has been spared the plight of other Israeli citizens with disabilities who are locked up in large institutions - like Aleh and ADI!

Here (over on the right) is Haya receiving her first Fycompa pill of 6 mg. It only took about ten hours on the phone to various offices of our health fund to finally purchase them. And for no comprehensible reason other than bureaucratic whim! 

Nothing works like a haranguing mom.