“I really like this job, we provide social transport in the municipality of Kuusalu, and mostly also an escort service with it. We customers are wonderful people, friendly and benevolent. Most of them are already elderly people, with whom we have had very nice moments,” said Tiina Peensalu, customer attendant of OÜ Koplimetsa’s disabled bus.
Tiina Peensalu and Toomas Peensalu’s company Koplimetsa OÜ has been providing social transport services in Kuusalu municipality since 2018. At first they operated on the basis of individual orders, later they participated in tenders organized by the municipal government and turned out to be the winner. In 2019, a one-year contract was signed with them, then a three-year contract, and once more a one-year contract for this year.
First, they worked with an older disabled bus, which ended up often needing repairs. Starting in the fall of 2021, they will be driving a new minibus specially adapted for the disabled, which they have purchased with a lease. The bus has a wheelchair lift with wheelchair attachments.
Last year, 68 adult customers used the Kuusalu municipality’s social transport service, a total of 41,272 euros were spent from the municipality’s budget. This year, 54 customers have used the service in nearly three months. This year, 50,000 euros have been allocated to the municipal budget to pay for the planned service.
Funding is divided into two parts – from 2023, the customer’s co-payment is equal to 25 euros for the round-trip journey and the use of the transmitter, regardless of where the journey starts. Previously, customers had to pay a deductible according to the number of kilometers traveled, which meant that residents of remote villages had to pay up to 35 euros for a ride, residents of villages closer to Tallinn less than 25 euros. The municipality of Kuusalu will pay the social transport provider 2 euros for every kilometer traveled this year.
According to Tiina Peensalu, there is enough work, and although they also get calls from other municipalities and want to order social transport, they have had to say no. Last year, an average of 4,500 kilometers were traveled by the disabled in one month.
“We cannot make more than three trips in one day. If there are several subscribers at the same time and the routes cannot be combined, we have also driven with two machines, Toomas with a disabled bus and me with our family’s Škoda Kodiaq SUV. Social transport is intended for people who, due to mobility difficulties or health problems, cannot use public transport or a private car to go to the doctor or request a document, and for younger people, also to go to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. First of all, the social welfare specialist of the municipality assesses the applicant’s need for assistance. If it has been decided that the municipality will pay for the applicant’s social transport, the ride can be ordered directly from us in the future. When a client calls me, I write down the time in my notebook and also in a special digital calendar that can be seen by the municipality’s social workers,” he explained.
Most clients need an escort, which means that they will be taken to the doctor’s office or the necessary specialist and then back to the wheelchair bus or car. Regular customers are often driven to procedures, including chemotherapy or dialysis twice a week.
“We help depending on the situation. Most of the time we do not enter the doctor’s office ourselves, but there are also those clients who ask me to go with them and help them remember what the doctor said. We help visually impaired customers to put on their outerwear at home and take it off followingwards. I have also run to the pharmacy to buy validol for a client. On Fridays, I call all customers for the following week and remind them of the driving time,” described Tiina Peensalu.
According to him, one concern is the parking facility. If the customer has a disabled parking card, the vehicle providing social transport may be parked in a disabled space, where parking is free or for a partial fee. If the customer does not have such a card, he must find a paid parking space further away. Toomas Peensalu has reached an agreement with Ravi Street Central Hospital that if you drive there with a disabled person, you do not need to have a disabled transport card and when paying for parking, it is checked whether a disabled person was brought to the doctor.
Tiina Peensalu: “It would be a great help if the social transport provider was also given a disabled parking card. We have also discussed this with social transport service providers in other regions.”
At the beginning of last year, Tiina and Toomas Peensalut were recognized at the Kuusalu town thanksgiving party “Wet and recognize” with a thank-you book.
