The Senate approved this Wednesday (18) Bill 2,687/2022, which equates type 1 diabetes mellitus to a disability for all legal purposes. The text had already been processed in the Chamber of Deputies and will now go to presidential approval.
“Our expectation is that these people will receive the attention that the State has owed them for a long time”, stated the rapporteur of the matter, senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE). Across the country, according to official data, around 600,000 people have type 1 diabetes.
It is a chronic non-communicable disease that occurs when the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. This results in an insulin deficiency, which prevents glucose from entering cells and causes blood glucose levels to rise.
Project supporters point out that the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Germany already classify type 1 diabetes as a disability. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that Brazil occupies 6th place in the world among the countries with the most people with diabetes in general and 3rd place when it comes to type 1 diabetes.
In practice, the text now approved by the National Congress provides that the same rules already provided for people with disabilities, as established by the Statute of Persons with Disabilities, will apply to type 1 diabetes.
According to this law, the assessment to determine the disability is biopsychosocial and must be carried out by a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary team. A person with a disability is considered to be someone who has a long-term impairment of a physical, mental, intellectual or sensory nature that makes it difficult for them to participate in society on equal terms with other people.
*With information from Agência Senado.
