Independent Living/Disability Rights briefly

The most recent newsletter of the Independent Living Institute features an editorial by the Institute's Director, Dr. Adolf Ratzka, on the need for direct payments to persons with disabilities
Direct payments for personal assistance allow disabled persons themselves to control and make their own choices regarding their personal assistance services, how the services are organized, and to custom-design their services according to their individual needs, capabilities and circumstances. In addition to the editorial, the newsletter contains links to other articles and reports regarding personal assistance and direct payments that are housed in the Institute's online library. To read Dr. Ratzka's editorial and to access the other reports and articles on the topic, please visit http://www.independentliving.org/newsletter/10-03.html.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a survey that finds many non-elderly adults with disabilities face challenges in accessing and paying for needed health care
Nearly half surveyed report that they go without equipment and other items due to cost; more than a third postpone care because of cost and skip doses or split pills due to medication costs; and many spend less on basics such as food, heat, and other services in order to pay for health care. These and other new findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 1,505 non-elderly adults with permanent physical and/or mental disabilities are published in a new Foundation report, Understanding the Health Care-Needs and Experiences of People with Disabilities: Findings from a 2003 Survey. The survey is available online at http://www.kff.org/medicare/121203package.cfm and in a recent online edition of Health Affairs available at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w3.552v1.pdf.

For the first time in its history, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved urgent measures to protect the lives and physical integrity of 460 people detained in a psychiatric institution
Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) sought the urgent intervention of the IACHR to prevent conditions threatening the lives, liberty, and personal security of two boys, ages 17 and 18, and 458 others detained in the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital of Paraguay. To read more about the horrific conditions endured by the two boys and the other detainees, see MDRI's press release at http://www.mdri.org/projects/paraguayabuses.htm.

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