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Finland Services for the Disabled
The Welfare of the Disabled Act of 1946 set the
responsibilities for treatment of the physically
handicapped. The
institutions that offered housing, occupational training,
sheltered working environments, and physical
rehabilitation were
overseen by the National Board of Social Welfare, while
about a
score of schools for handicapped children unable to attend
ordinary schools was supervised by the National Board of
Schools.
Special equipment, like prostheses, was supplied at no
cost, as
were such services as the adaptation of living areas. In
the late
1980s, there were some 30,000 mentally handicapped Finns,
10,000
of whom received welfare ranging from living
accommodations in an
institution to day-center care or jobs in sheltered
workshops.
There were not enough places to accommodate all the
mentally
disabled properly, so some were placed in private homes or
in
retirement homes.
Data as of December 1988
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