By Andrea Sophocleous
VULNERABLE teenagers with acute learning disabilities are being shunned by a state-funded institution created for their special care.
And parents of children with special needs are angry that there is no effective legislation to protect their children’s right to care.
The issue of caring for young people with learning disabilities came before the House Committee for Labour and Social Welfare yesterday, following a proposal for examination by United Democrats deputy Androulla Vassiliou.
The Committee heard that a learning institution for young people with special needs — the Christos Stelios Ioannou Institution — had during the period 1995-97 thrown out a number of young people in its care and denied access to others for failing to meet certain criteria.
Of primary concern was the fact that these young people had been expelled or rejected without a placement being secured for them at another institution, due to a lack of space.
The institution’s management claimed the youths no longer met the criteria of their learning disability being classified as light to medium; their needs could therefore not be met by the facilities or staff at the Ioannou foundation.
The number of young people affected was disputed, ranging from three, as claimed by the institution, to 15 as argued by the Cyprus Association of Parents of Handicapped Individuals and the government Committee for protection of people with special needs.
According to Vassiliou, a total of ten young people attending the institution had been dismissed between 1995 and 1997; to this day, only six of them have obtained a placement in an alternative institution, the remaining four facing inadequate care at home.
Three of the six for whom places had been found were in nursing homes for the aged — a solution beneficial neither to them nor the old people at the home.
Vassiliou argued that receiving as it did £800,000 a year in government grants and with a staff of almost 100, the Ioannou institution should have been able to meet the needs of the people rejected.
But Dimitris Neophytou, director of the Ioannou institution, defended his institution’s actions, saying the youths expelled — three according to his count — had been extreme cases that could no longer be controlled by the staff.
In the circumstances, Vassiliou charged that legislation approved by the House in 1989, and which sets out the state’s obligation to provide care and assistance to people with learning disabilities, did not go far enough.
A representative of the Committee for Protection of people with special needs agreed, characterising the law as “handicapped”. She said that the committee established by the 1989 law was limited to an advisory role. It could make suggestions on the issue to care institutions and the government, but had no power to take any action or to reprimand institutions for acting wrongly.
A Welfare Department official, Roulla Theodorou, said the government was confronting the situation through the creation of special households for young people with learning disabilities, with one already being in operation, another about to open in a few days, and seven more being planned.
These households are run by the government and accept up to five people with special needs to form a family unit and lead a normal life, integrating into society.
Theodorou argued this was a better alternative to institutions, despite the higher cost, because it provided a better quality of life for those involved.
But some deputies argued that seven houses catering to four or five people with special needs did not solve the basic problem of lack of government monitoring of existing state-funded institutions.
The committee concluded that the state was obliged to ensure that children with special needs were properly cared for, but confirmed that a legal vacuum prevented effective regulation.
It will reconvene to examine the matter further and prepare a report for the House setting out necessary legislation to remedy the situation.
