The ongoing vetting of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) for income tax exemption is a welcome move. The vetting is aimed at bringing more PWDs into the tax exemption bracket. Currently, PWDs registered with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) and earning a salary of below Sh150,000 or Sh1.8 million per year are entitled to this.
The exemption is meant to allow PWDs to save some money from their paycheck to meet the additional healthcare needs occasioned by their disability.
However, the tax exemption should also be extended to parents and caregivers whose children with disabilities are registered by NCPWD. While it is granted that they are not disabled themselves, their children's condition in essence incapacitates them.
They also cater to additional healthcare needs on top of other family needs.
The financial burden on them is thus three to four times more than that of parents and caregivers raising children without disabilities.
Disabilities caused by neurological conditions for instance are very expensive to manage. One such disability is Cerebral Palsy (CP), a motor disability that affects a child's ability to move, maintain balance and posture.
While some children with CP are partially dependent, most of them are fully dependent and it is up to the parents to offer round-the-clock care until they are able to stand on their own.
Other than the basic needs that all children are entitled to, children with CP require regular occupational and physical therapies to help them optimise their mobility. Most of them also have comorbidities, with epilepsy being the most common.
This means they have to be on anti-convulsant medications for most of their lives. They also require several assistive devices to help them lessen the impact of their physical impairments and maximise their potential.
All these interventions are very expensive but very necessary for the child, and they are paid out-of-pocket.
Other than the occasional visits to the paediatrician, these children also require regular care from paediatric neurologists and this is also an added out-of-pocket cost to their parents and caregivers.
School fees for children with CP and other neurological conditions is higher compared to their typical learners, because of their added care needs. House managers also ask to be paid more because these children have more needs and all this is paid for from the parents' paycheck.
These needs strain such families' budgets extensively, forcing them to forego some of these children's needs. This results in the child regressing and losing the milestones they had achieved with these interventions.
There is a great need to amend the Persons with Disabilities Act to include parents and caregivers of children with disabilities, to cushion them from healthcare-induced poverty.
While it is not lost on us that the government is helping lessen the burden on the parents and caregivers, a lot more needs to be done.
Ms Wairimu is a journalist and a mother to a special needs child. wairimuimmaculate85@gmail.com
