Archive for April 2014
Getting about…the least of his worries!
This article has been playing through my mind overnight.
Especially these sentences:
“It’s not like incapacity benefit, it’s not a statement of sickness,” Mr Duncan Smith says of the benefit. “It is a gauge of your capability.
“In other words, do you need care, do you need support to get around. Those are the two things that are measured. Not, have you lost a limb?”“But, can he guarantee that every person in a wheelchair will still get this benefit?
“Yes,” he says firmly before adding: “But, again I can’t jump the gun and say it, but my assumption is yes.”
Now I want to add something to this…
From this I get the impression that they believe being in a wheelchair is all about the ability to ‘get around’ Living with, caring for and speaking for my paraplegic husband I can quite categorically state that ‘getting around’ is the least of his worries.
His disability is far more complex than that.
It’s about his skin maintenance.
It’s about his incontinence both faecal and urinary…when was the last time IDS shat the bed!
it’s about his inability to walk
it’s about his inability to access places….2014 and he still can’t get in the local bank!
it’s about his inability to feel below his waist…zero…nothing…zilch!
it’s about his self worth in this fast paced perfection seeking society
it’s about planning and never being able to be spontaneous anymore
it’s about his sexual dysfunction
it’s about his pain in joints and muscles that are so overworked due to the paralysis in the lower half of his body…his upper half is fucked!
it’s about his emotional wellbeing.
it’s about his being able to stay clean
it’s about his not being as fit as he once was…not everyone can be a paralympian!
it’s about him aging with a spinal cord injury meaning everything ages faster than a healthy person…especially joints.
it’s about coping with the benefits system.
it’s about coping with the continual rise in disablity hate crime and attitudes towards those who are thought of as a ‘burden’
it’s the complete lack of understanding when it comes to public transport.
it’s about his right to be a worthwhile member of his community.
it’s about being a husband, a son, an uncle, a brother and being able to be part of his family not isolated and cut off.
it’s about so much more than the disability…it’s about the man…my husband who tries so hard every single day to be productive with all the shit that life has thrown at him, all he has to cope with including infections, cancer and migraines. He could not do any of this unaided or without DLA or ESA.
I am so proud of my husband …he laughs often and he works harder than any other man I know.
I’m telling you here and now IDS doesn’t give a flying fuck about disabled people getting the benefits they need to be able to be part of life and family and society…this man wants to withdraw all means and monies to disabled people.
Iain Duncan Smith is the sickest person in Government in my opinion.
Case proven? Government stays away from benefit deaths tribunal
Seen to be done: The tribunal took place at the Law Courts in Cardiff (pictured), in public – which allowed friends of Vox Political to hear the case.
The Information Commissioner’s Office and the Department for Work and Pensions have highlighted the weakness of their own case for hiding the number of people who have died while claiming sickness and disability benefits – by failing to turn up at a tribunal on the subject.
They had the opportunity to explain why mortality statistics for people claiming Employment and Support Allowance since November 2011 have been suppressed, at a tribunal in the Law Courts, Cardiff, yesterday (April 23).
But, rather than be grilled on the reasons for their decision by a judge, a specialist in this area of law, and a ‘lay’ person (representing the opinions of right-thinking members of the public), they chose to stay away.
The tribunal had been…
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Information tribunal on deaths of IB/ESA claimants – next week
PLEASE SHARE WIDELY
Inevitably, there will be organisations I have missed – and I also want as much of the social media as possible to be aware of this and to be spreading the word. For that reason, I’m publishing the text of the press release below.
If you have a Facebook page, blog site, Twitter account or whatever, please feel free to use what follows and make sure people know that this is going on.
Diary marker
Tribunal – Law Courts, Cathays Park, Cardiff, April 23, 2014 at 10am
Incapacity benefits – deaths of claimants
A tribunal will decide whether the Department for Work and Pensions should be ordered to release its statistics on the number of people who have died while claiming Incapacity Benefit or Employment…
View original post 511 more words
