There is a reader from Henan, a true story, let’s call her Xiao A.
Xiao A works in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital. After her mother became ill and unable to care for herself in 2022, she followed her to Zhengzhou to live. During hospitalization, the doctor reminded her that the elderly person’s physical condition could apply for a disability certificate after a year.
The story begins here.
During this time, I followed her step by step, tracking her process of applying for a disability certificate for her mother. Just such a small matter, following along, I glimpsed a world that was ignored by us “normal ordinary people”.
It’s like it is, but not quite, it’s not surprising, but it’s absurd, and it’s unbelievable.
1. Online assistance for the disabled?
The application process began in August 2023. Xiao A easily found that as early as March 2021, the Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation had specifically announced: You can apply for a disability certificate online on “Yushi Ban” (Henan Provincial Government Affairs Service Terminal). “Yushi Ban” also released a special guide “How to Apply for a Disability Certificate Online? Go to the “Yushi Ban” Assistance Service Zone!”. At the city level, “Zhengzhou Ban” (Zhengzhou City Comprehensive Service Platform) also announced support for online application for disability certificates.
Very considerate, very convenient, a small matter, right?
In February 2022, the Henan Provincial Government announced that “Yushi Ban” allowed 60.59 million people to save 300 million kilometers of travel and save 500 million hours of time for handling affairs. It’s a great deed.
There is indeed an entry for “New Application for Disability Certificate” online, but when Xiao A tried to apply online and clicked “Online Application”, she entered the “Live Detection” link and received a notification: “This type does not currently support online processing, please apply offline.”
So, it can’t be done online? Then, what about those previous promotions from the province to the city?
2. Assessment Discount?
So, Xiao A called the Disability Certificate Application Window of the Zhengzhou Jinshui District Government Affairs Service Center and received the reply: “It can only be handled on-site, not submitted online. Only those with a household registration here can apply.”
Okay, apply offline, Xiao A is not entangled in this. However, as a reader, before calling for consultation, she did some desk work and noticed that in 2021, the China Disabled Persons’ Federation had issued a document (Zhong Can Lian Ting Fa [2021] No. 10 “Notice of the General Office of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation on Comprehensively Carrying out the ‘Cross-Provincial Processing’ of Disability Certificates”): “The application for disability certificates is not restricted by the place of household registration, and can be processed across provinces.”
Xiao A’s mother’s household registration is in a certain county in Henan, and she holds a residence permit in Zhengzhou. This regulation of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation just helped her.
It can be processed across provinces, so what’s impossible within the province? Xiao A immediately inquired whether she could apply in a different place with a residence permit in Zhengzhou. After some communication, the window said that the Jinshui District is only responsible for the acceptance link. After the materials are complete, the materials will be transferred to the place of household registration. Whether it meets the requirements of the place of household registration and whether it will be processed depends on the place of household registration.
The window also mentioned that the application can only be made after one year from the last discharge of the patient, so the time was delayed until January 2024.
On January 16, Xiao A came to the Jinshui District Government Affairs Service Center. More than four months have passed, and the window staff still said that this type “all needs to be handled on-site”, and also said that they are only responsible for acceptance, and the certificate will need to be collected at the place of household registration in the future, “Do you really want to handle it here?”
Xiao A submitted the materials (mother’s residence permit, household registration book, medical records, photos, application form, etc.). The staff noted “at your own expense” and designated a hospital, requiring her to do a disability assessment. Xiao A went to the hospital and learned that the assessment could be done next Wednesday, and the fee was 380 yuan. At this time, a friend called and learned that she was doing the assessment, and reminded her that in this case, whether it is the place of residence or the place of household registration, the disability assessment is free, and for severe disabilities like Xiao A’s mother who have difficulty moving, home assessment can also be done.
Xiao A then called the Disabled Persons’ Federation and received a reply: Zhengzhou’s free assessment is only for the first assessment. Xiao A said: “We are applying for a new one, the first assessment.” The other party said again: “Is your mother’s household registration in Zhengzhou? If not, you can’t.” Then hung up the phone.
So we noticed a scene related to “disability assessment”: The Zhengzhou Disabled Persons’ Federation in Xiao A’s mother’s place of residence stipulates that it is free; the county Disabled Persons’ Federation in Xiao A’s mother’s place of household registration also started to be free in 2017; but now, Xiao A must pay, 380 yuan.
The reason is that Xiao A’s mother left the place of household registration.
3. System Vacuum?
The system has become sluggish.
Online processing, cross-provincial processing, and mutual recognition of assessment results in different places, these are clearly required by central documents and confirmed in publicity, but the Disabled Persons’ Federation window seems to be unfamiliar with the documents of its own system. It’s even less familiar than Xiao A, who casually searches the internet.
The system also has gaps/vacuum.
The relevant clause of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation document is: “The assessment fee shall in principle be borne by the applicant. If the place of habitual residence and the place of household registration have clear regulations on the reduction or exemption of assessment fees, they shall be implemented in accordance with relevant policies”. Many years before this document, the two places involved in Xiao A’s mother had already introduced policies for free disability assessment, but now, she is thrown outside the policies of both sides and is not supported by either side.
At this step, Xiao A began to realize that according to this logic, disabled people whose place of residence and place of household registration are inconsistent cannot only not apply the disability assessment fee policy, but also the discounts on rehabilitation, employment, and auxiliary medical equipment, etc., cannot be realized in reality. Therefore, this is not just a matter of the interests of a disabled person’s family, nor is it just a matter of disability assessment fees.
Xiao A has been paying attention to Youyou Luming since 2018. At this time, she said to me: It’s time to “advance step by step”.
Next, Xiao A frequently contacted the 0371-12385 Disabled Persons’ Hotline, Zhengzhou 12345 Hotline, Zhengzhou Disabled Persons’ Federation, Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation, etc. Either she couldn’t get through, or those who could get through all required self-payment. The harshness, contempt, and ridicule were also self-evident. Of course, there were also some staff members who had a good attitude, but the conclusion was the same, and there was no change.
In communication with the city and district Disabled Persons’ Federations, Xiao A said that if this problem could not be taken seriously and actively responded to, she would seek media help and continue to report to the higher authorities, but they didn’t care.
Fortunately, Xiao A is a person with a relatively strong heart.
Once, a staff member of the Disabled Persons’ Federation asked Xiao A how much the assessment fee was. When she learned it was 380 yuan, she was surprised, “Why would you care about such a small amount of money?” Another time, Xiao A found that a staff member of the Disabled Persons’ Federation was also completely unfamiliar with the No. 10 document of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation in 2021, so she repeated the title and relevant clauses of the document word by word four or five times before he was able to record it completely.
It is said that Zhengzhou is implementing a document from 2015, “Notice on Printing and Distributing the Implementation Plan for Free Assessment of Disability Categories and Levels for Disabled Persons in Zhengzhou” (Zheng Can Lian [2015] No. 40, jointly issued by Zhengzhou Disabled Persons’ Federation, Zhengzhou Health and Family Planning Commission, Zhengzhou Finance Bureau, and Zhengzhou Price Bureau), but although Xiao A repeatedly asked, she could not see the true face of this document.
Just as Xiao A communicated and suggested with the Disabled Persons’ Federations at several levels, the State Council issued a document “Guiding Opinions on Further Optimizing Government Affairs Services, Improving Administrative Efficiency, and Promoting ‘Efficiently Handling One Thing‘” (Guo Fa [2024] No. 3), which again emphasized cross-provincial processing and clearly included “New Application for Disability Certificate” in the 2024 key items list of “Efficiently Handling One Thing”, and designated the Disabled Persons’ Federation to be responsible for implementation.
It’s really a coincidence.
Finally, Xiao A wants to directly reflect the situation to the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. According to the China Disabled Persons’ Federation’s prompt, if there are any problems, call the Disabled Persons’ Hotline 12385 for consultation, but after repeated attempts, it was finally confirmed that in Henan, calling 12385 or 0371-12385 directly cannot get through; adding the area code 010 of Beijing, where the China Disabled Persons’ Federation is located, and calling 010-12385, will be transferred to the Beijing 12345 hotline platform. Therefore, Xiao A can only complete the real-name registration through the interactive exchange interface of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation’s official website and then found that: whether it is opinions and suggestions or complaints and requests, they cannot be opened and cannot be submitted, because the system displays “only for users with disability certificates”. However, what she wants to reflect and consult is precisely the issue of applying for a disability certificate.
It’s another gap, a vacuum.
4. Talking to the Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation
Xiao A repeatedly questioned, and yesterday, January 26, also received the final written reply from the Jinshui District Disabled Persons’ Federation on the Zhengzhou 12345 applet. The wording was much better, but everything remained the same.
At this time, we suddenly had a whim, what about other districts besides Jinshui District? So, Xiao A asked the Disabled Persons’ Federations of several other districts in Zhengzhou and learned that:
Erqi District: Only free for the place of household registration;
Guancheng District: Only free for the place of household registration;
Zhongyuan District: Only free for those who meet the assessment standards at the place of household registration, and not free for those who do not meet the standards;
Shangjie District: Free regardless of the place of household registration or the place of residence.
In other words, there is a district (Shangjie District) that actively responded to the spirit of the State Council and the China Disabled Persons’ Federation on “cross-provincial processing” and fee reduction.
In other words, in Zhengzhou, the problem Xiao A discovered is completely possible to solve.
However, why for so many days, after Xiao A repeatedly reflected the problem and put forward suggestions to the district, city, and provincial Disabled Persons’ Federations, the system’s reply is still “I remain unmoved”?
Is it because Xiao A is rational and restrained, and what she is holding is not boiling water, so it can’t scald it?
When Xiao A and I kept talking about the details, I became curious about the Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation: What kind of institution is this?
Take a look, it’s a bit interesting.
Among the main responsibilities of the Disabled Persons’ Federation, the first one is: “Listen to the opinions of the disabled, reflect the needs of the disabled, safeguard the rights and interests of the disabled, and serve the disabled.” According to the “2022 Henan Disabled Persons’ Undertakings Statistical Bulletin”, there are 7,588 staff members of the Disabled Persons’ Federations at all levels in Henan Province, and a total of 50,000 full-time committee members of the Disabled Persons’ Federations in towns (streets) and villages (communities).
In other words, the entire system of the Disabled Persons’ Federation has nearly 60,000 full-time staff serving the disabled in the province.
What is this concept? We roughly estimate that if each full-time staff member’s monthly personnel expenditure is 5,000 yuan (including wages, social security, housing provident fund, welfare, etc.), the annual cost is 60,000 yuan, and 60,000 people is 3.6 billion yuan.
Data reference, from “Kanzhun.com”
What can 3.6 billion yuan do?
Starting from 2023, the Henan Provincial Government will increase the upper limit of monthly subsidies for severely disabled people to 75 yuan. This is one of the core benefits of holding a disability certificate.
3.6 billion ÷ 75 ÷ 12 = 4 million. In other words, according to the current policy, the highest standard can be used to issue monthly subsidies to 4 million disabled people.
So, how many disabled people are there in Henan Province? I didn’t find the exact number for a while. The “2022 Henan Disabled Persons’ Undertakings Statistical Bulletin” says in the “Social Security” section that the number of disabled people participating in the basic old-age insurance for residents in Henan Province is 2.694 million. In addition, the “Informationization Construction” section says that in 2022, “continuously deepened the sharing and application of data on disabled people, and timely updated the data of more than 2.8 million certificate-holding disabled people in the province”.
Neither of these two numbers reached 4 million. If we roughly estimate according to 3 million, then, 3 million * 75 * 12 = 2.7 billion yuan. 3.6 billion is also 900 million yuan more.
The above is just an assumption. As a reference in reality, at the provincial level, according to the “2022 Annual Budget of the Henan Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation”, the personnel expenditure of the provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation is 40.0969 million yuan, and the public expenditure is 3.8534 million yuan.
Of course, the work of the Disabled Persons’ Federation is not only to issue subsidies, but also to do many other things, such as training, rehabilitation guidance, etc. I don’t understand these things very well. What I am more familiar with is this work in the “2022 Henan Disabled Persons’ Undertakings Statistical Bulletin”:
“In 2022, the official WeChat account of the Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation published 778 articles, with a total of 125,600 views, 6,923 shares and forwards, a total of 501 views, and a total of 1,354 likes.”
This number is quite surprising, because, as far as I know, a decent public account can achieve such reading, viewing, and liking data with one article. Why bother for a year, why 778 articles.
I opened the official public account of the Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation, and the reading volume of the articles is generally within 100, dozens, or more than one hundred. The undeniable fact is: even the staff who get paid in the Disabled Persons’ Federation system rarely read it. Otherwise, with 60,000 full-time staff in the province, if one-tenth of them read it, there would be 6,000 views, not dozens.
What is more worth asking is: Why are there so few people among the millions of disabled people in the province who pay attention to the Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation?
This is a question I want to talk to the Disabled Persons’ Federation about.
Taking the disability assessment as an example, “streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and providing better services” and “efficiently handling one thing” are well implemented in other areas of society, but this area of disability assessment, the central government requires cross-provincial processing, and you can’t even do cross-city processing. The policy is clearly free, but Xiao A has to spend 380 yuan, and she can’t break through it even after repeated communication. Does this “eating appearance” look good? Is this “numbness” and “sluggishness” healthy?
Even if it’s free, normal people, who would do a disability assessment for no reason? Who would take advantage of this?
Under such a style, in addition to applying for certificates, have disabled people encountered similar problems in the fields of rehabilitation, employment, education, training, and auxiliary medical equipment?
The Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation is so “neglected”, isn’t the problem it illustrates obvious?
May I ask, Xiao A, who has received higher education and actively came to offer suggestions, is still rejected, how can ordinary disabled people have the ability and the mind to pay attention to you?
Disabled people are indeed disabled, but they still have hearts and feelings. If you don’t really care about the disabled, then why should the disabled pay attention to you?
In the “2022 Annual Budget Report of the Henan Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation”, I noticed that the operating expenses of the Henan Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation’s organs were 2.4459 million yuan, an increase of 581,900 yuan over the previous year, an increase of 31.22%. The main reason is to strengthen the construction of the party’s organs, so the investment in expenses has increased. I don’t know where this newly added 581,900 yuan of party building expenses has been invested. What I am worried about is: as the “Half-Month Talk” has pointed out, it is in these years that some places have seen “the luxury trend of party building sign construction”, 12 red characters cost 300,000 yuan, and a sign costs 440,000 yuan… This kind of showy and impractical fancy is competing for beauty, what benefit does it have for the country and the people? I hope that this money of the Henan Disabled Persons’ Federation does not belong to this category and is spent in the right place.
Let’s imagine that if this newly added 581,900 yuan is used for disability assessment, it can at least provide free services for 2,078 disabled people like Xiao A’s mother who meet the conditions for applying in different places (581900 ÷ 380 = 1531). May I ask, is it more helpful to “strengthen the construction of the party” to give praise to the newly added 1,531 disabled people?
Xiao A’s “practical matter” delivered to the door, why doesn’t the Disabled Persons’ Federation do it?
Writing to this point, I can’t help but think of a sentence from Wang Fu’s “Qianfu Lun” in the Han Dynasty: “Eating heavy salaries in vain, being a vegetarian and occupying a position.”
5. All things work together, and all things have good intentions
Recently, Xiao A has spent a lot of energy on this, and occasionally complains to me, and vents a little: “I also hate myself a little, what can I do in a month that doesn’t earn 75 yuan?”
Of course I know her earning ability, but I also believe in her tenacity. Because, she also said to me like this:
“Although I don’t have great energy, within the scope of my experience and feelings, I also want to do my part. Because, society becomes better, not by big people doing a lot, but by every small person like me, working hard a little bit.”
“Regarding my mother’s illness and subsequent experiences, I couldn’t accept it at first, but through her hospitalization and old-age care, I found many problems in the medical and old-age care industries. I chose to accept and be submissive to many things, but this is wrong. Such social problems should be exposed and paid attention to, so that they can be well resolved. Perhaps, all things work together, and all things have good intentions, and there is an arrangement in the dark. Sometimes the suffering encountered by Zhang San may be to solve the difficulties and problems faced by many, many people. Those who cannot speak, those who have not received education, those who are intellectually disabled, and those who are physically disabled, all need someone to speak for them. If I hadn’t encountered it, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to understand it, and I wouldn’t have thought of other groups.”
A simple fact is: 380 yuan is very little for Xiao A, who has a relatively stable income, but for the disabled group with a maximum of 75 yuan per month for severe disability care subsidies, it takes 5 months to save up. Especially, the disabled people who are newly applying for certificates are just encountering difficulties, and at this time, every penny is very important to them.
Sometimes I also feel absurd. When we want to do something that is supposed to be done, it is difficult to find a basis; but those who should do it but don’t want to do it for you can always find a carload of bases and reasons.
We often say, “Your salary, your grain, the people’s fat and people’s ointment”. In fact, the Disabled Persons’ Federation under the current financial system, because it spends money in the name of the disabled, is related to the bottom line of society, it is even more special, not just the people’s fat and people’s ointment.
What is your duty? What is your contribution? In a person’s life, even if they are numb and indifferent, they should at least look up at the starry sky and think about these two questions once.
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