‘No family visits this Eid for majority of disabled people at care centres’

AMMAN — Only 18 per cent of people with disabilities at public care centres received visits from relatives during Eid Al Fitr, the Ministry of Social Development said on Wednesday.

Ministry Spokesperson Fawaz Ratrout said private centres for disabled people reported similarly “modest” visitor numbers during the Muslim holiday, when it is traditional to visit family members.  

Around 600 people with disabilities live in public care centres, while over 1,200 disabled people live in private centres, Ratrout said, noting that many of the residents’ families live abroad. 

The spokesperson told The Jordan Times that the ministry’s new regulations require families to visit their disabled relatives. 

"The ministry's new regulations require families to sign a commitment to regularly communicate with their disabled relatives upon admission to care centres, and to visit them at the centres and host them at home during holidays," he said.

Among those who answered the ministry’s requests to visit their disabled relatives was an expatriate mother who visited her disabled son for the first time since he was admitted to a care centre 19 years ago. 

Ratrout explained that the ministry facilitated the woman's visit in order to encourage future visits to her son and to encourage other parents to visit their family members.

"Family visits are one of the basic rights of centre residents," he told The Jordan Times in a phone interview.

Meanwhile, he said the Prime Ministry's legal committee is scheduled to discuss the by-law proposed by the ministry concerning the home-based early intervention programme.

Under the proposed programme, a team of specialists, including an early childhood specialist, a psychiatrist and a physiotherapist, will provide at-home services for children aged below six years with any kind of disability. 

The expected outcomes of the programme include reducing disability rates as early intervention increases improvement, in addition to decreasing care costs, which reach up to JD1,000 per person per month.

Furthermore, the programme aims to better integrate persons with disabilities into their families and the entire community.