Rehabilitation is extremely important in the process of improving and advancing the health of people with disabilities and the elderly, but research has shown that a large number of them are discriminated against because they cannot use the services of spas due to the architectural inaccessibility of services and capacities, emphasized the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, at to the conference held on the occasion of the presentation of the report on the availability of spa resorts for people with disabilities and the elderly, realized by the Alliance for Accessibility of Serbia.

The Commissioner pointed out that it is not easy to achieve full accessibility of all facilities and areas but that the priority is to ensure that health and social protection institutions, educational institutions, courts, and other public institutions are accessible to everyone, and added that accessibility is one of the basic conditions for achieving all other rights.

The Commissioner stated that the practice of the Commissioner in dealing with complaints related to this area showed that often the solution to the problem did not require large financial resources but the recognition of the problem and the goodwill to solve it, which is why it is necessary to build awareness that accessibility is important for everyone and at a certain point in life also necessary.

The conference was organized as part of the project “Strengthening the resilience of the elderly and people with disabilities during COVID-19 and future disasters”, funded by the European Union, with the support of the Austrian Development Agency and the Austrian Red Cross. The Red Cross of Serbia coordinates the regional project, and the national partner is the National Organization of Persons with Disabilities of Serbia.