A matter of luck?
Issues regarding healthcare, education, daily struggles for lack of a better term. Is it pure luck or is the refugee crisis exposing certain systemic failures within Austria? Perhaps the latter?
There is a German word I have thinking about a lot this year. “Einzellfälle”. It means like a single incident. When systems and processes do not work as they should, senior officials spend a lot of time making phone calls to solve these “one-offs”. Until it stops being, in my opinion, not a bug, but a feature. When your system is often not efficiently helping people nor providing them with what was promised, and there is often so little or no flexibility in implementation of rules and regulations (and zero oversight / no court to run to when things seem unfair), often vulnerable people like refugees are left at the mercy of a kind bureaucrat to make a few phone calls, provided they have access to one. In most cases, you don’t. So you are stuck with whatever sub-par solution has been handed to you and your family.
Today I would like to share two stories from two families, one from Vienna, one from the countryside, both to do with their kids and school and health. Because, as we learned during the pandemic especially, education and health are actually tightly connected. You need to be healthy to attend in-person school, and you need a healthy environment for learning within that building. Add on top, “special needs”, both cognitive and physical, and it gets even more challenging. Something like 20% (no source as I heard this from an UNHCR representative recently) of the Ukrainian refugees who chose Austria have health issues or other diagnoses which make them fall into the category of special needs. Although programs are not really in place to provide them with extra support. Each individual or family must ask around the various NGOs and counsellors until they find whatever limited resources are available. As I said to one older woman from Odesa with Parkinson’s to whom I gave a card to at the Arrival Center this morning: you will need your own translator for all your medical appointments; the doctors and hospitals are pretty overwhelmed at this point.
With that intro, the first story is from Wien. I translate word for word, but promised to preserve the mother’s anonymity.
Dear Tatiana,
You are doing so much for Ukrainians, a huge thanks for that. I don’t feel comfortable bothering you, but I don’t know where to get help. My question is in the name of mothers with children with developmental issues. All of us, both children and parents, did’t choose a life with being handicapped, we would really like to not have to bother others with our problems. But as refugees, we are particularly dependent. At home, we had some structures, and we managed with the difficulties, despite the disabilities. We came to Europe not in search of a beautiful life, we were happy at home, but we had to run from the shooting.
Vienna does not have enough school places for children with developmental challenges. There are not even enough places for local Austrian kids, that is what I am told by authorities. But a citizen of Austria has the right to choose homeschooling, but we Ukrainians are told we must bring our children to school, to schools where they do not learn anything and there is bullying, and we cannot defend our child, and we cannot return to Ukraine. We are very grateful to Austria for the peaceful sky above us, for the financial support. But perhaps this wonderful and financially stable country could do something for children with special needs, open new classrooms for them, or simply allow them to learn from home, it would really be the lesser evil for my son who loves to read and learn new things, but now hates school and already talked of self-harm twice!!
My son is 9 years old and it is already the second war in his short life. In his early childhood, his orphanage was evacuated from Luhansk from the fighting and since then he has feared loud noises. He lived in an orphanage until he was four and a half, and then it took us a long time to do all he paperwork which allowed me to adopt him. We, the whole family, worked towards his rehabilitation, he put in so much energy, and by six years old he was able to read big thick books!
My son has a diagnosis of ADHD. Many people think it is simply a matter of not enough discipline, but it is a psychiatric diagnosis, based on certain parts of his brain not having developed as the should. Such children can be difficult to manage in classrooms and are a challenge for teachers. He cannot fully control his behaviour, he makes noises, moves, talks. The teacher does not hide his/her annoyance and lets the other children respond to child who broke the rules. The children are really bullying, and my child cannot say anything back in German. There are physical fights.
This is a special class with 12 students and two teachers, but they cannot handle the situation. In May, the teacher yelled at my son every day for not having glue and scissors, knowing he is a refugee! And yet the teacher did not tell me anything for weeks. All other questions are decided in the same way: they forced the child since fall to play computer games, so that he would not bother the other students, and all of my attempts to explain that with his diagnosis, his behaviour will only get worse with computer games, were unsuccessful. His behaviour deteriorated, now they ask me to “tell him”.
In the fall, during a fight, the teacher held my son, and during that time, another child hit him really hard with a fist on his teeth. And no one got that kid in trouble! My son was in shock that everyone is against him, and grabbed scissors to show that he will defend himself. He didn’t attack anyone, but here that is seen as a serious threat to society, and so he was banned from going to school for 10 days. Two weeks ago, the situation repeated: the teacher held my son, and another child beat him on the legs, and kicked him in the stomach. After that, my son went after the boy with a pencil. This is unacceptable, of course, and then he got another 10 day ban. But the tall boy who kicked him in the legs and stomach, and another tall boy, who kicked my son in the back and held his face to the chalkboard, both got to keep going to school. They have not changed their behaviour. It seems to me they even tried to hold him under water at swimming and then laughed about it.
I don’t know where to ask for help, to fix this situation. I fear that this approach of the teacher is making my son into a criminal, because those kids are allowed to hit him and laugh about it. My son is really at a loss, he cannot control himself, and the teacher does not plan to change the methods used.
My son goes to ergotherapy, takes medication, and a week ago his doctor met with his teacher and a representative of the Bildungsdirektion, but they didn’t decide anything, as there are no free spaces in special classes for unstable kids with only five children per class. The mother is also not allowed to sit in the classroom. In his current class, my child is hardly learning anything, his German is still very bad, although he is intelligent, but his emotional instability prevents him from learning the language. The class is for kids with intellectual difficulties, the curriculum is easier, and they often give homework like “2+3” or “20+4” which my son could do at the age of five. When I asked why the teacher doesn’t give him more challenging assignments, they said they give him what he can do on his own, without further explanation! My son is now in the third grade for the second year doing second grade work… I understand he is disrupting the others and he isn’t really being taught, but there they took a kid who can read a thick book in one day in Russian, who went to music and art school, did extra math and logics assignments, they have simply turned him into an outcast who is forced to spend a half day in the company of enemies, and then is tired and it is hard to study with him at home.
I read all that and felt completely exhausted. Like a gut punch. Feels the same way after translating it. For full disclosure, this mother has another child also with special needs who is in one of these special very small classes (four students, two teachers) and is doing very well, has learned German well, and will even be moved to an ordinary classroom next year. So it is possible. A matter of luck or systemic failure? Both?
The mom sent me an update this morning.
In Vienna, there are 100 children with serious emotional problems which prevent them from learning in normal classrooms. They are all waiting for spots in special classes with only four students each. These are Austrian kids, and others. So even local children cannot get places in the type of education they need! Apparently the authorities know this but for whatever reason they do not open more classes. We don’t have any hope that things will change for the better by next September.
Next, a message from a village in Lower Austria. Again, keeping this vague to protect the mother and child. I saw this message in a Russian-speaking mommy group and then reached out, realizing I had texted with the Ukrainian mom once before during our Christmas chocolate distribution. She expanded to me yesterday, and gave me permission to share her story. Mother came from Odesa oblast, and area she says is now cut off from most of Ukraine. She therefore cannot go home right now, she explains. This story is about small town resources overwhelmed by an inflow of refugees (and not just Ukrainians) and the intersection of healthcare and education and paperwork and rules for the sake of rule-making.
Ladies, good evening. Could someone please give me advice? I came from Ukraine with my child. My daughter attends local school, but she is sick all the time. She is chronically ill, she has problems with bronchitis and her lungs. She has always had this. In addition, she had a really bad case of covid pneumonia, and that made things worse in what was already not a good situation health-wise. In Ukraine, my daughter was cared for by the local clinic and from time to time underwent prophylactic treatment. Here, the doctors do not treat her at all. We live in a hostel for refugees in a village; there is one family doctor for three villages. I go to him like I got to work. He only gives us cough syrup and that’s it. I explained that my child is chronically ill, zero reaction. I asked for a prescription to see a pulmonologist, but the next available appointment is only in three months. My child is sick more than she goes to school. The doctor refuses to give a document for the school which would confirm that she is sick. He says, just call the school and tell them. They called me into the school and began to threaten me that they might call social services, and inquire why my child isn’t coming to school. Of course I have no papers which would confirm that my child is ill. They say that you cannot be sick that often here, that even if your child has a fever you should take a pill and go to school. My daughter is sick again, and there is no point to go to the doctor again. They are threatening us from the school. In other words, a vicious circle. I cannot change to a new doctor as we live in a village and I don’t have the option to travel far away on a regular basis. What can I do and how can I protect us from the attacks from the school? Where should I go to prove that my child is really sick and chronically ill? Thank you all for your answers!
So I read all that on Saturday night and the first thing I did was to leave the mom a voice mail saying: please don’t take it personally, doctors are totally overwhelmed by an inflow of new patients who don’t speak German and no one compensated them for all this extra work, strange the school isn’t more understanding, we usually just write notes ourselves when our kids are sick. I have never once had to provide a doctor’s note. Nor have I ever sent a child with fever into school with a tablet.
Mom left me another 10-minute voicemail, elaborating. I paraphrase:
I feel like the medical system and the school are working together to put pressure on us. We are in a new country, we don’t know the language yet. There are two big hostels here with refugees from many nationalities. Of course it is a strain on the local doctor. My daughter has to go to the neighbouring village for school. They have a Russan-speaking teacher who communicates to us. She unfortunately is from the “Soviet school” and yells at the children like that is normal. I wrote to the school director, explained about my daughter’s chronic illness. She also has problems with her legs and I had to ask could they please not ask her to have to change her shoes. Now looking back I see what good medical care we have in Ukraine. Europe is not all so “super pooper” like we thought. But I am here with my elderly mom who can barely walk, I cannot take them back to Ukraine right now. I just wish they would do something to help treat my child.
The Ukrainian kids are sick a lot. Maybe it is the climate. I know a mother who was contacted by social services, they threatened to take her child away if her child doesn’t go to school more often. I wish they could all be more understanding. 99% of us will go home to Ukraine as soon as it is safe. It all is foreign for us here. Yes, the system of social protection here leaves a lot to be desired, but as we say “you cannot enter a different monastery with your own rules!”. Living here for a while, you see Europe differently. For me the Russian-speaking people who have managed to build lives here are really heroes. It is really a huge challenge and accomplishment to be able to adapt to this system and integrate oneself into local society. Thank you!
I don’t know what this is exactly. Exhaustion, being overworked, local power-trips, xenophobia, inflexible bureaucracy, lack of empathy, all of the above? These are two specific cases, but they reflect a certain rigidity of approach which is starting to really drive some Ukrainian moms crazy. They have been here for months. They have had some time to settle in. And now they must fight these daily life struggles. It is not easy. The mandatory school attendance is a killer if Ukrainian online school is also only available in the mornings/early afternoon. The first thing I always say is do not take it personally.
A mom of four girls came to pick up some used clothes from me yesterday. She too is upset about school: her 15 year old isn’t learning anything, she wants to know when she can stop attending. She thinks now, but a social worker said only the end of the year. The second oldest is miserable in a middle school where the teacher is annoyed with her for being too quiet, and the girl (admittedly quite shy) is horrified by the other kids’ behaviour in class. Mom keeps telling me all the problems and then she reminds herself she is so grateful for the financial support and most importantly to be in a safe place. Have patience, I say. Wait it out a bit longer. They even inspect our rooms in the group home every week, she says, it’s so humiliating. I’ve heard, I reply. Their housing, their rules I suppose. Yes, she nods. She was once in the infamous dorm in the 11th district. At least we got out of there. At least you got out of there. And they left, rolling a purple suitcase filled with used girls clothes to the bus stop and an hour’s journey to the other side of the city.
Very briefly, do read & watch: