A 16-year-old handicapped Guadeloupean has been waiting to go to school for 8 months in Toulouse
Last February and their arrival in Toulouse, a Guadeloupean is desperately looking for solutions to educate her son, who suffers from dysphasia. According to the departmental services of Haute-Garonne, he has not yet been taken care of because his file had not been submitted or transferred from Guadeloupe.
“Since February Mathis has not been able to return to school because ‘3-4 years of waiting and on application’ ??? Excuse me? He is 16 years old !!! In the meantime, what is he doing??” This rant is that of Melyssa Paul-Joseph, a Guadeloupean, in relation to the situation of her little brother Mathis.
This 16-year-old suffers from dysphasia, that is to say a severe disorder of oral language development: he has trouble expressing himself without hesitation and formulating his ideas orally, although he has normal intelligence.
Until then educated in a medical-educational institute (IME) in Guadeloupe, he had to leave the island last February to follow his mother and grandmother to Toulouse. The latter being seriously ill at the time, she had come to be treated in France, by her accompanied daughter, the mother of Mathis, who had taken her disabled son with her.
On the spot, the mother of Mathis Isabelle Paul-Joseph multiplies the steps with the IME of Haute-Garonne. But there is no room.
At the same time, she turns to the Haute-Garonne Departmental House for People with Disabilities (MDPH) for help. “I’ve been there several times too… Except I got no support from themshe points. They just told me that I had to two to four years of waiting and that they couldn’t do anything, that they had no control when it came to IME registrations.”
It is indeed not the MDPH that manages requests for placement in IME, and the lack of places in these structures is not a problem specific to Haute-Garonne. According to a study carried out by Faire face, a media specializing in disability issues, there was already a lack in 2018 30,000 seats in IMEs in France.
The IMEs are managed by the regional health agencies (ARS). Isabelle Paul-Joseph has therefore tried to contact that of Occitanie several times, in vain for the moment. Overseas the 1before, we also asked the agency to find out more. We are currently awaiting a response.
“I want to understand that it takes a turn of time [pour trouver une place]. What is surprising is that behind, I am offered nothing“, is surprised the mother of the family.
It targets the MDPH, one of whose missions is to support people with disabilities and their families who find themselves without an immediate solution, and to offer them alternatives, such as bringing in an educator at home.
To try to get things moving, Isabelle Paul-Joseph therefore turned to the Guadeloupe MDPH, which tried to help her.
With her daughter, they also wrote to the mayor of Toulouse and to the Ministry of Autonomy and Disabled People asking them to intercede on their behalf with the Departmental Council and with the ARS of Occitanie. The mayor did it, the ministry ensures to do it, according to the letters submitted Overseas the 1st had access.
Constant at the beginning of October that nothing changed, the mother and the sister of Mathis therefore published a rant on social networks to shout their “feeling of abandonment“.
Since then, the situation has changed. A social worker from the Haute-Garonne MDPH called Isabelle Paul-Joseph on Wednesday October 19 to take stock of Mathis’ case and find out what steps she had taken.
Information confirmed by the MDPH of Haute-Garonne. The latter explains the lack of support by the fact that she does not have “been seized[e]except orally lately” : “There was no file filed […] for the son, Mathis, who was placed in an IME in Guadeloupe.”
“Madame Paul-Joseph went directly to the reception of the MDPH in Toulouse to ask for a place in an institution for her child, where she was told that the waiting lists for IMEs are long.“, specify the departmental services.
The file would also have been transferred only on October 10. They claim not to have received it to date [lundi 24 octobre] and get on”in relation with the MDPH of Guadeloupe to move forward”.
After this first contact by the social worker, the MDPH of Haute-Garonne specifies that “the solutions that can be proposed will take into account the places available and it may be that the solution is home support”.
For her part, the Guadeloupean in the impression”don’t worry about the child“. She was even considering the legal route if nothing moves: “If at the end of the month, I have no solution, I will be obliged to file a complaint against the French State because it is a right for children with disabilities to be taken care of..”
In the meantime, Mathis stays at home every day: “I take him out when I get home from work, or he goes out with his sister when she doesn’t have class, he doesn’t know anyone in Toulouse.” And every day, he asks his mother when he’s going to go back to school.