Rights of people with disabilities. Ombudsman recommends in-depth review of the System for the Allocation of Support Products

Faced with the persistence of complaints related to delays and difficulties in accessing fundamental support products for people with disabilities or temporary incapacity, the Ombudsman’s Office carried out a study that comprehensively examines SAPA – the System for the Allocation of Support Products.

The conclusions of this study, now published in this Thematic Report (link), show that in order to obtain support products such as wheelchairs and prostheses, people face an extremely bureaucratic, fragmented, confusing and time-consuming system, which often requires several face-to-face trips to the services, which can jeopardise their clinical recovery, autonomy and well-being, as well as conditioning their ability to work and integrate into society.

The report concludes that SAPA’s organisation is too focused on the administrative entities that make it up, neglecting the needs of users, which takes the system away from the purpose for which it was created: to ensure universal and free access to essential support products for people with disabilities or temporary incapacity.

Created in 2009, SAPA operates on the basis of an excessively complex model involving entities spread across four funding areas – health, education, social security and labour and vocational training – and a managing body, the National Institute for Rehabilitation. The lack of articulation between these entities leads to confusion, errors and recurring delays in the process of allocating support products. The lack of an integrated platform means that not all products are funded, while at the same time creating the risk of the same product being funded by more than one organisation.

There is therefore an urgent need for a structural overhaul of SAPA, which puts the user at the centre of the whole system, in order to guarantee easier and faster access to support products, responding to the real needs of this population and ensuring that people with disabilities can have better prospects of recovery, and live with dignity and autonomy.

Several cases brought to the Ombudsman’s attention illustrate the seriousness of the concrete impacts of SAPA’s dysfunction, such as people unable to work or forced to remain bedridden while waiting for the support products they need.

In this context, the Report presents two dozen Recommendations, including the definition of a single interlocutor for SAPA users, the updating of the list of fundable products and the creation of public banks for the re-utilisation of funded products.

To read the Executive Summary, click here [in Portuguese only].
To read the full Thematic Report, click here [in Portuguese only].