“We are not just our disability”, the message from Paralympic champion Flora Vautier for the MDPH open days in Nîmes

Gilles Eyraud, directeur de la MDPH : “Nous avons 73 000 bénéficiaires”. Midi Libre – K. H.

Plus de 400 visiteurs sont venus ce samedi découvrir les services de la Maison des personnes handicapées (MDPH) et des associations présentes.

The young table tennis player Flora Vautier, a medalist at the Paris Paralympic Games, happily takes selfies in the crowded hall of the MDPH, which is organizing an open house for the third year this Saturday. The young woman is there to tell her story from an accident that left her paraplegic to the limelight of high-level sport.

“We are not just our disability,” smiles the young volunteer. Everything is possible… maybe even more!” A comforting message for all the people who come to the MDPH with bumpy and painful life stories. Doubts, questions and life's struggles…

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The table tennis player Flora Vautier came to talk about her journey. Midi Libre – K. H.

More and more people

“There are more and more of them. And many do not necessarily know all their rights…”,explains Gilles Eyraud, the MDPH director, delighted to present all the assistance offered by the Department but also by the twenty or so associations present that day and committed on a daily basis to disability (employment, housing, autism, sport, carers, etc.).

“Today, 73,000 people have a file with the MDPH and this is increasing by around 10% per year”. Because new rights are opened, “such as the disability compensation benefit (PCH) for parents or that for assistance with autonomy in mental and cognitive disorders”, specifies Gilles Eyraud. But also because there are more and more diagnoses, “with many neurodevelopmental disorders”.

Solidarity, 60% of the Department's budget

A rise in cases over the past twenty years and a stable workforce of 50 employees at the MDPH (which has a budget of €100 million), this creates delay problems that users are well aware of and that the director does not deny. “On average, the response time for a case is four and a half months. It is tighter on the PCH, we are working to improve the response time response”.

Christophe Serre, president of the MDPH and vice-president of the Departmental Council, points out that solidarity as a whole represents 60% of the Department's budget. The uncertainty of the national context is inevitably worrying. “It's very unclear, the elected official acknowledges. We're not going to tighten the screws, obviously, but we'll be more vigilant about all our spending”.