[The mentally ill and disabled-stepchildren of rehabilitation]

The institutions traditionally catering for the mentally ill and disabled are more and more turning into Psychiatric Hospitals (Clinification). Efforts are being concentrated on treatment and therapy, while a majority of the chronically ill and disabled are placed in nursing homes for their long-term care (and are pensioned prematurely). Though an extensive network of rehabilitation facilities has been developed in the Federal Republic of Germany, and although social legislation has provided for equal status of the mentally ill and disabled with other ill or disabled persons, only a negligibly small number of patients from psychiatric facilities are given the opportunity for participating in rehabilitative measures. This arises from the fact that the present range of facilities has in the fist line been developed according to the rehabilitational needs of people with physical disability, and from a reluctance on the part of the agencies financially responsible for rehabilitation services and benefits (with the exception of social welfare) to honour this social legislative title of their mentally ill or disabled insured (except for patients with dependence problems and neuroses). As the official disability statistics, too, usually negate the specificity of mental illness and disability the problematic issue does not emerge openly.