Being disabled ain't cheap

Few weeks back I saw someone sharing this article. In short the article summarise that the people with disabilities have on average 28% higher cost of living.

One of my friends posted on Facebook a campaign to collect money for her disabled adult sister. She needs physical therapy. Twelve days of intensive therapy, without food and accommodation costs almost 4000 euros. Ideally she would need this twice a year at least. You can imagine her chances of getting it herself are slim. She isn't working due to her severe disability. Doesn't have parents anymore. Only the sister who has her own family and children...

Recently I've listened to the podcast of a lady who has child with severe disabilities which are life threatening and the child had to undergo special and complex surgeries. She couldn't work so the family of four lived on one income, having massive expenses. She mentioned in the podcast, that only physical therapy, which she thinks had the most impact on the improvement of her son costed about 50 000 EUR.

The two examples above are from Slovakia. The median year salary for Jun/23 in Slovakia is 18 180 EUR gross. You can have a look on cost of living in Bratislava here You'll learn that saving up 50K isn't easy task if you need them in short amount of time. The most you can influence their development and counteract the disability is while the children are very young. It's a race which costs a lot of money.

Let's now consider, that by welcoming disabled child to the family, the probability, that only one parent is able to continue work at least next few years is high. From my surroundings I see, that often one parent gives up and leaves the family unit altogether because the strain on the relationship is high. Therefore most of disabled children and their parents live of one income and/or state support only. Leaving the main care taker with no time off. Let say the state support is less than minimal, sometimes I feel like it's non existent. You definitely need some willpower, help and perseverance to collect all the necessary documents to get it.

This is how the community who needs more support actually begins their life much with less before they even take the first step.

When I see someone disabled and with seemingly "classic normal life",most of the time, that person was raised in the family which didn't shatter under the weight of diagnosis. They were able to pull through and often are able to pull through thanks to help of wider family members or community.

It saddens me that it's not normal for everyone.