Annual Expenses Exceed 100,000 Yuan, but Subsidy Only 4,800 Yuan?

This is the annual expenditure and subsidy of Tsering, a mother from Tibet, who brought her 9-year-old autistic son to Chengdu for intervention.             To afford this cost, she sold a house.             In her hometown in Tibet, many other children are staying at home due to lack of funds and awareness, unable to access professional resources.             "The standard of rehabilitation subsidies is relatively low, which is far from the actual needs of families with autistic children."             During this year's Two Sessions, Hu Chengzhong, a deputy to the National People's Congress, submitted a proposal that accurately depicts the predicament faced by Tsering and others like her.

A Mother and Son Who Left Tibet

This year is the third year that Tsering, from Tibet, has been alone with her 9-year-old son Dorjee in Chengdu for intervention.             In 2021, Dorjee was diagnosed with autism, a piece of news that once left Tsering devastated.             "I had never heard of this term before, and there was no such situation around me, so my mood was particularly complicated."             To fight for better intervention resources for her child, Tsering came to Chengdu alone with her son, while her husband stayed in Tibet to work and take care of their eldest son at home.             Three months later, unable to rest assured about her eldest son far away in Tibet, Tsering took Dorjee back and tried to find local intervention resources, but the effect was not ideal.             "Sometimes I feel that those teachers are not as professional as me."             After receiving professional guidance in Chengdu, Tsering had a certain understanding of autism intervention.             She said that when her child first attended intervention classes, he would cry and resist.             Teachers at the institution in Chengdu helped the child adapt in about a week, but at that institution in Tibet, the child often cried for 15 minutes during a 30-minute class.             "They can't even handle the child's emotions, let alone teach the class."             Tsering said that the speech therapy teaching at that institution was also very rigid:             "They just take out a picture book and teach two words, a very inflexible way of education."             In 2023, Tsering had to take her son to Chengdu again to seek more professional intervention resources.             But behind the professional resources are heavy economic pressure and insufficient subsidies for cross-regional treatment.             If staying in Tibet, Dorjee could receive 400 yuan per month in intervention subsidies, and could also enjoy discounts on class fees at designated institutions of the local government.             But after coming to Chengdu, he could not enjoy the preferential policies of designated institutions, and only received 400 yuan per month in subsidies, totaling 4,800 yuan a year.             Faced with the high cost of intervention, the subsidy is just a drop in the bucket.             Dorjee's annual intervention cost is at least 100,000 yuan, plus rent and living expenses, putting a heavy burden on the family.             To afford this cost, the family borrowed money from relatives, took loans from banks, and finally sold a house.             At present, Dorjee's intervention expenses are supported by the money from selling the house.             Tsering said that at most by the end of this year, she will have to take her child back to her hometown in Tibet.             "There is another child at home who is going to high school, and I have to take care of him too."

Raise the Amount of Rehabilitation Subsidies

Tsering's experience is not an isolated case.             In that rehabilitation institution in Chengdu, there are more than a dozen Tibetan families like hers who bring their children for cross-provincial intervention.             "There are also grandparents who come to accompany the children by plane from Tibet to help."             Tsering said that many parents have to work, so only the grandparents can come to Chengdu to accompany the children to study.             "Some elderly people can't even read Chinese characters and are very anxious here."             Hu Chengzhong mentioned in his "proposal" that when issuing subsidies, most provinces and cities have regional restrictions on the rehabilitation institutions chosen by families, generally limited to local institutions.             If a family chooses to receive rehabilitation services in other provinces or cities, they can neither apply for subsidies locally nor in the place where they receive services.             To support the high cost of intervention, some families have to borrow money.             In addition, he also pointed out that there is a household registration threshold for applying for subsidies.             Some provinces and cities only protect children with local household registration, ignoring non-local household registration families whose parents have long worked and lived locally, and welfare is tied to household registration, resulting in unfair protection.

In addition, since children's daily intervention relies on professional institutions, the annual cost ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and subsidies are difficult to cover the cost.             Take Shanghai as an example, the monthly subsidy ceiling for institutional rehabilitation training for autistic children is 2,000 yuan (24,000 yuan per year);             Zhejiang is on par with Shanghai;             Beijing is 36,000 yuan per year;             Shaanxi is 15,000 yuan per year;             Shenzhen has the highest subsidy at 50,000 yuan per year.             To address the above problems, Hu Chengzhong put forward three suggestions:             First, encourage economically developed provinces and cities to appropriately raise the standard of rehabilitation subsidies.             Second, break the tie between household registration and welfare.             Include autistic children whose parents have long worked, lived and paid social security locally in the scope of subsidies.             Finally, refer to the medical insurance "cross-regional medical treatment filing" model to allow families to choose designated institutions across provinces.             Subsidies shall be issued by the place of long-term residence in accordance with standards to remove the obstacles in cross-regional intervention protection.

It's Not Just About Money: "Having Services, Having Places to Go, Having Hope"

Tsering also talked about another dilemma: dual-income families are often rejected when applying for intervention subsidies.             "The civil affairs department said that if both husband and wife are working, they do not meet the conditions for applying for subsidies.             But even dual-income families cannot afford the hundreds of thousands of yuan in annual intervention costs at all."             This dilemma is not an isolated case.             During this year's Guangzhou Two Sessions, Lei Jianwei, a deputy to the Municipal People's Congress, also put forward suggestions on similar issues, pointing out that there is a problem of tying the application for subsistence allowances and assistance to family economic conditions.             Although the "Measures for the Implementation of the Minimum Living Security System in Guangdong Province" allows adult unemployed severely disabled persons to apply for subsistence allowances as "single-person households", in practice, the income and assets of their family members such as parents and spouses are still included in the audit scope, resulting in many disabled persons without independent economic sources being unable to enjoy protection because the family's overall income "exceeds the standard".             Therefore, he said that the subsistence allowance audit mechanism should be optimized to fully implement the "single-person household" protection.             For severely disabled persons aged 18 and above, as well as persons with intellectual and mental disabilities who have no spouse or children and no income or whose income is below the subsistence allowance standard, they can be regarded as "single-person households" and included in the subsistence allowance scope, without considering the family economic and property status of their supporters during the audit;             For disabled persons with spouses or children, the eligibility for subsistence allowances shall still be determined on a household basis.             What is more difficult than money is where the children will go when they grow up.             Lei Jianwei said in his proposal: There are breakpoints in the whole life cycle services, and the support for the elderly stage is seriously insufficient.             Many families are facing the severe dilemma of "nowhere to go for their children after graduation", and parents are generally caught in the ultimate anxiety of "what will happen to the children when I get old".             To this end, Lei Jianwei proposed that on the basis of consolidating early intervention for children aged 0-6, focus on filling the shortcomings of inclusive education, vocational education, adult care and employment, explore the "public welfare + commercial" employment model, and let autistic people "have services, have places to go, and have hope".             There are more hidden corners.             According to a report by China Times, Wen Xiaoyan, a deputy to the National People's Congress, put forward suggestions on the current situation of autistic children in rural areas:             Within the framework of the existing care service actions for autistic children, further refine the discovery path, grass-roots bearing methods and family support mechanisms in rural areas, and promote the transformation of policies from "document deployment" to "grass-roots implementable and family perceptible".             At the request of the protagonists in the article, Dorjee and Tsering are pseudonyms.