COCEMFE denounces health reform affects people with disabilities.

-The acceptable minimum degree of health care must undergo to reintroduce the provision of prosthetics in the basic common portfolio

-is necessary to the chronically ill continue their treatment providing free medical transports

Madrid, may 2012.- the Spanish Confederation of people with physical disability and organic (COCEMFE) after holding meetings with their entities members and collect the different postures of the organizations in the sector, complaint that health care reform passed by the Government through a decree-law will be a serious setback for people with disabilities and their families.

In the view of the Chairman of COCEMFE, Mario Garcia, the implementation of Royal Decree-Law 16/2012 of urgent measures of the national health system would be a reform of the health care benefits that greater harm to the more than four million people with disabilities in our country ”.

COCEMFE considers essential to deal with as a project of law this reform so that the introduction of amendments to correct the negative aspects that affect people with disabilities and their families, and that disadvantage the assistance and integration improvements in recent years.

The acceptable minimum degree of health care must undergo to reintroduce the provision of prosthetics in the basic common portfolio, as it has been until now, since it’s an essential support for the personal autonomy of this group which would be affected dramatically with the introduction of the copay through a supplementary portfolio”, says Mario García.

It is also imperative that persons with chronic diseases can continue with their treatment and health care providing free medical transports as it has always happened in our country. Many of the people that must go several times a week to the hospital or a health centre cannot afford to pay for his transfer and would be seriously affected their quality of life and their State of health.

Similarly, COCEMFE believes that these people with chronic illnesses should be exempt from any type of co-pay when it comes to medications specifically prescribed for the treatment of his pathology.

Another change of this Decree is the need to keep the concept of insured persons with a disability from 33 per cent, and not to limit it from 65%.

The Spanish Confederation of people with physical disability and organic (COCEMFE) is a non-governmental non-profit established in 1980. It aims to unite, strengthen, form and coordinate the efforts and activities of the entities working in favour of persons with disabilities physical and organic to defend their rights and improve their quality of life. The entity brings together more than 1,360 organizations divided into regional confederations, State entities and provincial federations which in turn, grouped to different local associations.