The Social Fund of Russia provides about 15 payouts and benefits to families raising children with disabilities. Those include pensions and social benefits, cash compensations, as well as child rehabilitation support. Sergey Chirkov, Chairman of the Social Fund of Russia, revealed this today at a meeting of the Council for Persons with Disabilities held at the Federation Council.
The provision of rehabilitation equipment is one of the primary services that the Fund offers to children with disabilities. According to Sergey Chirkov, 25 million different products have been provided under individual rehabilitation or habilitation programs this year. Rehabilitation equipment that children receive from the Fund includes prostheses and orthotic products, complex orthotic footwear, walkers and supports, wheelchairs, etc. Most often, families get those via electronic certificates.
"We can see that certificates are the most popular tool for obtaining rehabilitation equipment," stated the Chairman of the Social Fund. "2.6 million certificates were issued last year, twice as many as the year before. About 70% of citizens choose certificates today; among parents of disabled children, that share exceeds 80%."
According to Sergey Chirkov, the primary advantage of electronic certificates is their convenience. Certificates are linked to payment cards, and the family decides where to purchase the product: from a vendor, a manufacturer or a marketplace. The key requirement is that it must fit with the individual rehabilitation program. This reduces waiting times significantly compared to procurement via government contracts.
The catalogue of rehabilitation equipment available for purchase via electronic certificates currently includes over 12,000 products from 1,900 manufacturers and official suppliers. It covers the entire range included in the federal registry and continues to expand. Starting last year, according to Mr. Chirkov, electronic certificates can also be used to pay for sign language and tactile sign language interpretation services.
On top of rehabilitation equipment, the Social Fund provides children with disabilities with pensions and welfare payouts. These are granted automatically based on data from the Bureau for Medical and Social Assessment regarding the assigned disability group. The Fund also provides non-working parents with a monthly allowance for caring for a disabled child and covers the cost of additional days off for working parents to provide care.
"This year, benefits have been provided to 107,000 parents for a total amount of RUB 11 billion," Sergey Chirkov said. 'Mothers and fathers can take four additional days off per month to accompany their child for treatment, checkups or rehabilitation. We have paid for 1.5 million such days since January.