“The government has exhausted the budgetary margins for the 8% horizontal increase in disability benefits, which was something due and comes as a follow-up to the emergency financial support measures for the disabled to support them in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and the imported inflationary crisis. That is why I hope that this measure will find consensus in all the wings of the Parliament” he stated the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Kostis Hatzidakis speaking in Parliament today on the Labor Department amendment tabled to the Home Office bill. As Mr. Hatzidakis noted, an 8% increase is foreseen in 10 disability benefits granted through OPECA and three benefits granted through EFKA.

The 10 allowances granted by OPECA and increased by 8% are the following:

1) Movement allowance

2) Nutritional allowance for kidney patients, heart and liver transplant recipients, etc.,

3) Financial support for people with severe disabilities,

4) Financial support for people with severe mental retardation,

5) Financial support for paraplegics, quadriplegics and amputees, uninsured and insured by the State,

6) Financial support for people with congenital hemolytic anemia (mediterranean – sickle cell – micro sickle cell, etc.) or congenital bleeding tendency (hemophilia, etc.), Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS),

7) Financial support for deaf and hard of hearing people,

8) Financial support for visually impaired people,

9) Financial support for people with cerebral palsy,

10) Financial support for sick and recovered leprosy patients and their family members.

The three EFKA benefits that are increasing by 3% are the non-institutional benefit, the sickness and incapacity benefit of State pensioners and the absolute disability benefit for pensioners of the former OGA who receive only the basic pension of the former OGA, as long as they have lifetime disability rate 100%,

Mr. Hatzidakis also said that the Ministry’s amendment introduces a one-day leave every year for gynecological examinations for private sector workers, expanding a provision that already applies in the public sector, “for reasons of equality and because we prioritize this issue. We owe it to women as a Parliament, as a State, as a society.”

Finally, he emphasized that provision is being made for the continuation of the uninterrupted operation of the structures of the General Secretariat of Demographic and Family Policy and Gender Equality that support and protect women who are victims of gender and domestic violence, with all their staff.