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Every year in Russia around one million working-age people become disabled and only five percent of them have a chance of fully restoring their health, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with representatives of disabled people’s organisations. The President stressed that in this situation one of the main priorities is to ensure social rehabilitation

December 19, 2003

There are 220 rehabilitation centres for adults and around 240 centres for children addressing this problem. “This really is a very low number,” Mr Putin said. The President emphasised that every district centre should have a rehabilitation centre for disabled people, and one of the key issues in rehabilitation is helping disabled people find work.

Mr Putin also said that the question of educating disabled children at general schools should be resolved by the end of the decade.

During the meeting, the President instructed the government to compensate disabled people’s organisations and businesses for the benefits and exemptions they have lost as a result of the new Tax Code coming into force and said that the budget “cannot exist at the expense of this group of our citizens.”

December 19, 2003