People like us currently have the following options of solving the problem of their dependence on other people:

1. using care services provided by welfare centers

- a limited number of care hours, granted by means of administrative regulation for several months pursuant to the Social Welfare Act [Polish Ustawa o pomocy społecznej]; payment by the beneficiary – depending on their income and a number of family members sharing the common household. In practice, people who achieve employment income, pay the whole cost of care services. Actually, care services are care services in name only – they consist in technical activities: cleaning, doing shopping. One cannot count on assistance with self-service (getting out of bed, personal hygiene, getting dressed), because the employees are not prepared to be providing this kind of help. There is no possibility of using any calling system in emergency situations (injury, falling off the wheelchair, fainting etc.)

These services are provided by firms winning tenders which are announced by welfare centers and the only one criterion is the price, therefore, the quality of these services leaves a lot to be desired. People employed to help the disabled receive very low remuneration (from 6 to 7 PLN net an hour), therefore, the rotation of workers (most often pensioners), their randomness – no preparation for providing care/assistance services – is frequent. This leaves no space for adjusting the form of help to the actual needs of the disabled.

2. stay in an institution of 24-hour care:

- health care center [ZOL] financed by the National Health Fund [NFZ] and the beneficiary (70 % of the income) or

- nursing home [DPS] – fees are collected from the income of the resident (70 % of their assets), payments of the people who are obliged to maintain and if there are no such persons or their income is too low, the stay is financed from the commune’s budget (a frequent situation, simultaneously there are long queues for nursing homes due to limited budgets of the communes).

Health care centers – a form of inpatient long-term care. Health care centers provide 24-hour health services including treatment, nursing and rehabilitation for people who do not require hospitalization any more, are already diagnosed, the process of surgical treatment is over, who, however, due to their health condition and the level of disability as well as no possibility of functioning in a home environment require constant supervision of professional personnel.

A person suffering from disability caused by e.g. dystrophy who has no possibility of getting some help, can be placed in such an establishment due to the fact that their muscles gradually atrophy and they have increasing problems with self-service (everyday toilet, getting dressed, preparing and eating meals).

It is also relevant for our Association, whose members are mainly women, that, according to the research, women in such establishments more frequently fall victim of violence (verbal, physical, sexual).

Due to underfunding and savings (the economic aspect is the most important one) the personnel in such establishments is constantly reduced, the number of employees is inadequate in relation to the level of necessary help, therefore, the majority of wheelchair users are placed in beds at 6 p.m. and taken out of them at 6 a.m., bath once a week etc., because the carers are not able to help the group of 20 charges in a relatively short time. Among these problems the atmosphere, character of health care centers can be named, for example: