The Government announced today that it will "modify" resolution 187 published in the Official Gazette a month and a half ago, following the controversy arising from the use of discriminatory terms to refer to people with mental health issues. In Annex I of the document from the National Disability Agency (ANDIS), words such as "idiot", "imbecile", "mentally weak", and "retarded" were used, provoking rejection from organizations that defend the rights of people with disabilities.
In a statement, ANDIS acknowledged that it was a mistake to use that terminology and affirmed that there was no discriminatory intent. They explained that it was an error stemming from the use of outdated concepts, noting that those characterizations used to belong to psychiatric medicine in the past, but were eliminated due to their pejorative connotation.
Despite the announced modification, ANDIS assured that it will not alter the evaluation criteria or the scale of the resolution in question. Resolution 187 aims to establish the criteria for evaluating individuals who receive disability pensions.
