The state of the union.
Westminster are demonising disabled people. This is sickening.
Or alternatively they have to ask about suicidal tendencies if there is any history of mental health or any detected mental health issue. It’s their duty of care, and yes if they asked something in that wording it would be horrible. People who claim PIP can also get it for mental health issues, so it is not in any way assuming that because someone is disabled they have to be mentally ill. These are medical professionals who have a duty of care.
There’s asking about suicidal tendencies and asking someone why they haven’t killed themselves yet.
That’s not a ‘duty of care’ line of questioning. To imply otherwise as some form of defence of asking people why they’ve not taken their own life is ridiculous.
During assessments, you’re made to re-live any trauma, to re-count any suicidal thoughts or self-harm in detail, you are asked to describe in great detail the most humiliating effects of your disability and after going through all that, your application is refused
👆👆👆👆👆
I’m 4000 miles away at present but my baby brother still calls me to cry about how he is treated by the people currently in control of whether or not he deserves PIP which is the only thing he has to live on apart from the help of my OAP parents who are also sick and struggling.
He was disabled at birth through medical negligence, has been in a wheelchair ever since, has only one working hand, is considered legally blind, has epilepsy, asthma and a whole host of other chronic conditions including a non functioning bladder and most recently a decline in mental health from receiving no help with any of the above.
And the person asking him the questions at his appeal, with his medical records in hand, asked him in all seriousness why he felt justified in calling himself disabled which, Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?
He was later asked, by someone else, if his conditions were really as bad as he claimed, why he hadn’t attempted suicide yet. That was a real question, from someone in a position of authority, hired by the UK government to decide whether or not sick and disabled people qualify for financial help in order to live.
I’ve never considered violence an acceptable outlet for towering fury, but I’m one flight away from making an exception for a motherfucker.
These are the values of the current Westminster government.
Local elections start around the country on May 4th 2017, followed by the general election a month later on 8 June 2017. I’m begging you, I’m on my hands and knees pleading with you, vote. If you are old enough and eligible to do so, vote. I know May called for the snap election in the middle of exam time, this was not a coincidence. If you won’t be able to get to a polling station because of exams or other commitments, you can literally sign up to vote through postal vote by filling out a simple form found here, which incidentally is the same form you use to sign up if you are not yet registered at all either due to age or having moved recently or changed your name:
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
It takes 5 minutes. I literally timed updating myself to vote through proxy as an absentee citizen.
Don’t let these people stay in power, don’t let them get away with eugenics masquerading as social reform. Please don’t stand on your pride, please don’t look at the other parties and think “well they’re all as bad as each other” because I’m telling you, as someone currently living in America under the Trump regime, they’re not all the same. Holy shit they are not the same. There’s corruption and then there’s making a pact with the Devil and wondering why everything is on fire.
Vote. Help protect the most vulnerable people in our society and VOTE.
60% of people who appealed the outcome of their PIP assessments had the outcome overturned. Over half of the people who were told “no, you’re fine, no money for you” were then told “oops, our bad, yes money” when they fought it.
You know what they did to rectify this? Instead of making the initial assessments fairer? They made it harder to appeal.
Seriously I work in this field, and it’s as bad as this and worse.
The worst story I personally heard was from a woman’s husband I talked to on the phone. His wife has serious arthritis and mobility issues, and for over a decade they’ve gotten by fine on the old disability benefit. Then they ‘migrated’ her and she had to go for a new assessment because her doctor’s word isn’t good enough anymore.
So she goes for this super stressful meeting, where it is standard for disabled people - young, old, physical disability, mental illness, severe or relatively mild, - to break down in tears because of the interrogation tactics used. The building in my town doesn’t have good mobility access (this is the building where they ASSESS DISABLED PEOPLE FOR BENEFITS) so she decides to use her sticks to get up the stairs and inside instead of the back way with the ramp.
When she gets into the meeting, she ends up crying because she’s in pain and these questions are stressful and awful. The assessor hands her a tissue. She thanks him, and wipes her eyes.
When they got the final assessment report, she had had her benefits slashed. Their reasons included, among other things, her ability to hobble into the building (caught on CCTV and reported), and her ability to wipe her own eyes when offered a tissue.
Let that sink in. This sweet old lady with profound, severe arthritis, who needs a wheelchair and a special car, who is very old and can’t work, got her benefits cut because when her assessor handed her a tissue - the man whose questions were making her cry - she could wipe her eyes.
Fuck PIP. Fuck the Tories. It’s a goddamn human rights violation and it makes me sick that this is my country.
Also, in addition to this, the physical exam in part assess your flexibility. Good flexibility = non severe physical disability. Poor = bad. Not that they’re gonna automatically give you the grant even if you’re barely able to move, however, here’s the thing;
If your physical disability means you’re too bendy like mine does, you’re fucked. There’s no metric for being too flexible. You’re seen as being fine. My ehlers danlos syndrome means I’m in severe pain all the time. I suffered for 22 years before it was even diagnosed. I’ve dislocated joints before. I’ve never had a time when one of my muscles isn’t pulled or one of my joints is out of whack. One of my vertebrae is crooked.
I was denied any physical disability assistance.
Not only are the people who asses you out to get you, trick you, trip you up, but the very set of rules they use doesn’t work. That’s not an accident. I’m only alive because I have beautiful, wonderful friends who have given me assistance when I needed it.
The tories are scum. They don’t just not care about us, they hate us and they’re actively trying to kill us.