Sushkevych on the new law on mobilization and abolition of deferrals for the disabled: there is no need to weaken the powerful Ukrainian army

The head of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee, Valerii Sushkevych, considers it pointless to cancel the deferral of mobilization for people with group III disabilities. On December 25, the Ukrainian government submitted a draft law on mobilization, military registration and military service to the parliament.

The document 10378, in particular, proposes to cancel the deferral for people with a group III disability, as well as to cancel the deferral for husbands/wives whose spouse is a group III disabled person.

According to Sushkevych, he could not imagine that he would have to work out the legality, expediency, and even logic of a person with a disability being mobilized, dressed in military uniform, given weapons, and included in the active army during the war.

OBOZ.UA publishes Sushkevych's position, which he voiced on his Facebook page, below.

"According to the law of Ukraine, a person with a disability is an adult with a persistent limitation of life, with a significant loss of health. This person needs social protection and support for their rights due to the restriction of their vital functions.

The draft law, which is being discussed by the whole country today, proposes to give this person a weapon and to perform combat missions at the proper level.

One of my foreign colleagues in disability rights asked me on the phone today, "What is the need for military mobilization of people with disabilities in Ukraine?" I could not answer this question...

According to official statistics, there are about one and a half million people with disabilities of group III in Ukraine. About half of them are women. If we subtract from this figure people who have reached the age of 60, we get about 30%. Thus, we come up with a figure of 500 thousand men with group III disabilities of conscription age.

And now, according to this draft law, military medical commissions will have to examine half a million men with group III disabilities, the vast majority of whom are not really fit for military service.

Moreover, these examinations will be conducted by 476 health care institutions, which will have to be paid from the National Health Service of Ukraine for each person with a disability who has undergone a medical examination.

The National Health Service has allocated more than half a billion hryvnias for this.

Do you understand? The funds will be used not to treat people, which is the main function of the National Health Service of Ukraine but to conduct a study of the military qualification examination of people with disabilities to send them to the Armed Forces of Ukraine!

So far, I have written about the "logic", "expediency" and "financial feasibility" of mobilizing a person with a group III disability, given the obvious fact that even those who are mobilized will not be able to perform combat missions at the proper level, like healthy people.

A few words about the qualifications and quality of the work of the Military Medical Comission.

The workers of the MMC are doctors from civilian healthcare facilities who have attended training, including online training, to become MMC workers.

The staff of the MMC are doctors from civilian healthcare facilities who have completed training, including online training, to become MMC employees.

All people with disabilities have to go through a medical and social expert commission to get a disability status. The Medical and social expert commission takes from one to two months. According to my data, the MMC, which duplicates the Medical and social expert commission by mobilizing a person with a disability, takes from 40 minutes to 4 days.

And again, according to my data, the staff of the MMC commit violations in their work ten times more than the staff of the Medical and social expert commission! More accurate statistics are available in governmental institutions, where they are aware of the realities of the situation," Sushkevych wrote.

The head of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee draws the following conclusions:

- It is an absurd idea to mobilize people with disabilities when there are able-bodied people who are liable for military service without disabilities.

- It is an absurd idea to spend hundreds of millions of the Ministry of Health's funds on mobilizing people with disabilities, duplicating the Medical and social expert commission, which has already determined a person with a permanent health loss.

- There is no point in weakening the powerful Ukrainian army with people with persistent disabilities and significant health loss. It is obvious that in a war, a person without a disability is much more useful and combat-ready than a person with a disability.

- It is obvious that a person with a disability has a higher risk of being seriously injured or killed in war.

Sushkevych also suggests that "someone wants to stir up society," discredit our Armed Forces of Ukraine, and frame the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

At the end of his post, Sushkevych asks a rhetorical question whether the mobilization of men with group III disabilities will solve the annual need for new soldiers in the Ukrainian army.

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