New criteria for establishing disability are applied from today

Baku/01.07.22/Turan: From today new criteria for establishing disability have come into force in Azerbaijan. Persons who have been permanently disabled by this time are not subject to these criteria.

From now on the disability will be established not on the basis of 3 groups, but on the basis of limitation of body functions within the range of 31-100%, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security reports. The assessment will be made according to 7 categories: self-care, free movement, orientation, communication, behavioral control, learning and work activities. After 31 percent, this index will be raised by 5 percent at each stage.

"Individuals who were granted temporary disability before that time will not be evaluated under the new criteria only after the end of that period," the department explained.

Children with incurable illnesses will be assigned disability for life, not until age 18, as has been the case until recently.

It ought to be noted that as a result of re-assessment in the period from the end of 2020 to the beginning of the second quarter of this year, about 200.000 people were deprived of disability groups of different degrees. The expert medical commissions believe that most of these persons are healthy and the assignment of disability was made on subjective evaluations basis. -08B-