Disablies are Dying in the UK

I have been having a really bad few months.

Since prior to my housemate finding new employment, I have been trying to obtain a formal statement of need from my local social services.  I had one but being socially minded, I chose to let my housemate look after me whilst he was unemployed, thus saving the Council money in paying for formal carers. A social worker got involved this time, instead of the usual council assessors. The assistance was requested in October, and only just before this bank holiday weekend did the social worker contact me with her assessment, which completely ignores my known needs as backed by my own G.P. (family doctor). This will now of course require me to appeal, further delaying the assistance I need to eat, take medications and deal with my personal care. My housemate now is so fed up of it all, that he has decided to throw his hat in the ring and advise Trafford Council that they either come up with an appropriate care package, or he will refuse any caring for me. This of course will then mean the council and social services will have to provide a much more expensive package as well as the cost of more frequent visits from the social worker and other bureaucrats. There is a social care crisis in England & Wales: tens of thousands of elderly, disabled and sick folk cannot obtain a care plan and thus the care they need just to stay alive.

I was assaulted and injured in December by an acquaintance who knew full well I am disabled and could not fight back. Because he is dating one of my good friends I feel constrained about reporting it to the police, as he would end up with a criminal record and the likelihood is that he would lose his livelihood. This then would likely put inordinate pressures on my friend’s affinity. The evidence is mixed, but the general consensus is that disability hate crimes have been on the increase since 2010. A report by the EHRC was misreported as stating that there had been no increase; but the agency swiftly issued a clarification. Unfortunately, by then the media was reporting the non-increase in hate crime...

In January I finally received my electronic Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim-form from the UK’s notorious Department for Work & Pensions (DWP). It was necessary to get my Member of Parliament (MP) involved as the DWP were very reluctant to assist me with a non-paper form and provide me with one that could be completed via computer. This is a legal requirement of UK anti-disability discrimination legislation. However the DWP regularly fails to issue forms appropriate to inter alia blind & partially-sighted folk, for example, so is constantly breaching the Law. They also do not publicise the email address from which one can request accessible format forms. I only found it out due to having connections from my disability rights activism. (Ultimately I hope to lodge this issue with the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Unfortunately, the UK government has cut this body’s funding to the bare minimum, so that it is now very difficult for them to fulfil their statutory obligations.) Due to arthritides writing for me is exceptionally difficult if at all possible. The form is actually a forty-plus A4 page booklet. I have cognitive difficulties at the best of times; but during the winter months my (progressive) aphasia is at its worst. Thankfully, I dealt with a very understanding civil servant who permitted an extension, so I had sufficient time to fully answer all the questions. It is now more than two months since the DWP received my claim and I have still had no decision.

Very large numbers of disabled individuals have been losing their disability payments as they are moved from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) the UK’s previous, far from generous, top-up payment for the extra costs incurred by those with impairments and disabilities. Losing this extra cash is not the only ramification of being found ineligible for PIP. It is an access payment to other social security benefits, such as housing benefit and the Motability scheme, whereby one is entitled to an adapted vehicle, electric wheelchair &/or mobility-scooter. Tens of thousands of disabled folk have had their adapted transport confiscated and are now trapped in their homes, many also have lost their jobs as they are unable to access public transport. The Citizens’ Advice Bureaux (CAB) network has calculated that some half a million disabled will lose out under the UK government’s cuts to benefit payments.

[*TRIGGER WARNING* Please do not continue reading if discussion of death/suicide may upset the reader!]

One of the most under-recorded and under-shared issues occurring in the UK is the sheer huge numbers of disabled people who are being “nudged” to commit suicide or are dying due to lack of food, appropriate medicines, accommodation that means they can lead independent lives, etc. The UK has gone from being one of the better countries supporting disability rights globally, to a pariah state quietly killing off its disabled & chronically sick populace. The mass media all but refuses to report on these issues, due to being in the main controlled by supporters of the ruling party. Only a few weeks ago one of these right-wingers suggested that it was appropriate that disabled folk and poor folk committed suicide in order to reduce the burden on the country’s economy - sounds similar to the polemic of 1930’s Europe and the USA, when it was euphemistically called eugenics and which led ultimately to the deaths of millions, a genocide. Currently the numbers dying due to the failures of the UK state are in the tens of thousands. This is termed ‘democide’. But when does democide become genocide?

The United Nations (UN) has already published three reports heavily critical of the UK’s approach towards the vulnerable in British society. A fourth report is due after the snap election, so too late to have any real effect on the electorate - assuming, of course, the media actually reports on the findings.

Europe has been asked by several disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) to investigate the deaths of we disablies. Up to now they have refused to do so. The UN can only write report after report. Meanwhile more disabled folk die needlessly each and every day. The relevant European Commissioner appears to have made no public statement about what is occurring in Britain. The European Union (EU) also appears completely unprepared for the tsunami of disabled/chronically sick people who will flood into Europe once BREXIT is complete, if not beforehand.

My academic background means I should have preferred to publish this blog completely annotated with supporting links to documentation, reports, statistical analyses, etc. Alas, I am not well enough to do so. However, my long-term readers know I do not exaggerate. Please do your own searches to check the facts.

The United Kingdom IS KILLING disabled &/or chronically sick individuals: family members, friends, neighbours, community members…… NO-ONE is lifting a finger to support us. I can only hope that this blog will survive to record what is happening here and that historians will once again record that the world stood by why innocents were killed by an uncaring state.

Please stand witness with me & my ilk!

*

This blog-post is published as part of Blogging Against Disablism Day 2017 (#BADD2017). For this year's articles and previous years' archives, please see here.

 

No Food, no Meds, no Care in Trafford

[Image description: assortment of medications in their packaging]

Some of you may have read my blog-post "Disability Discrimination in Trafford" from just over a fortnight ago.

Last week, in a surge of anger I went on to twitter and vented my spleen at anyone I thought might listen at how dilatory Trafford Council have been. Then I slept through the following two days totally exhausted from a combination of the DWP's PIP claim-process and expressing my frustration. I have been physically and emotionally drained ever since, until I woke up this morning with a supply of energy.

Today, I have written to my social worker who had decided to go with two thirty minute slots, one at lunch-time and one at tea-time, but missing out bed-time. [A breakfast call is not suitable for me and is thus not included.] I responded:

Dear [name of social worker],

Thanks for the update.

However, you are wasting your time. Please refer back to the correspondence with yourself, with [name of social care assessor], and my suggested care plan. Your suggestion will mean some 20 mins wasted of a morning session and no assistance for bed-time, with the result I would continue to miss my night-time meds.

The lack of meds over the past few months has meant some of my symptoms have deteriorated sharply.

The fact that neither you, Re-ablement nor the social care assessment team have ensured that you have put in place carers even for the previously assessed needs (Sept 2016), mean Trafford Council has seriously let me down over the past four months. I continue to miss two out of three sets of meds most days and some days all meds. I continue to miss one of the two meals a day I need each and every working day and any day that [name], my housemate, is away at the weekend. During most weeks I am lucky to get one shower/bath now. The situation is outrageous.

Please immediately devise a plan to ensure I am supported appropriately to my needs.

Please immediately sort out some care.

Please immediately forward details of the complaints procedure - although the situation is so egregious, I am considering whether I ought to pursue legal action.

Yours,

Colin

I sent some fifty tweets to media outlets, politicos, disability organisations, etc. I received back just two responses: one from the council asking me to ring them - which I cannot as I do not use telephones due to disability - and the other a link from the CAB abut moving into a new area - yes!?!

So here I am still not being fed (except by housemate of an evening), still missing out on most of my medications and still not receiving the personal care the local authority has already stated and assessed - per their own document - that I need.

Throwing my hands up in the air in total exasperation! Any suggestions?

I am not supposed to get myself stressed: but my heart is pounding, my blood-pressure is up, my temples are throbbing and I think I may need to have a nap.

 

Tory Slates Use of Food-Banks By Starving

Last week a headline in Manchester's local newspaper, Manchester Evening News (M.E.N.), read:

Tory MP: Food banks could make people too reliant on handouts

I have interspersed some of quotations from the article with my own commentary.

[Image description: Paul Maynard by Blackpool tower; courtesy Wikipedia {{subst:npd}}] 

"Paul Maynard, who works for Minister of State Oliver Letwin, said people could start going to food banks out of habit rather than helping themselves." 

Emergency food parcels should not be given to people – because they could get too reliant on handouts, a Tory MP has said.

This is total balderdash, individuals referred to a food-bank may only do so three times using vouchers given to them by a social worker, a GP (family doctor), a CAB (Citizens' Advice Bureau) adviser or a head-teacher (school principal). They cannot return to the same food-bank. Given most areas only have one food-bank, it is difficult to see how any but a tiny minority would be able to form a habit. Three visits certainly does not constitute a behavioural norm nor does it indicate dependence. According to the Trussell Trust, the UK's main food-bank provider, the main reason for folk needing food assistance is due to governmental delays in processing benefits to which the individuals are fully entitled. In a sense, for very many folk, it is the Government who are actually creating the circumstances that force them to use the very food-banks the so-called Honourable Member seeks to castigate.

"Mr Maynard, who has some of the country’s most deprived wards in his own constituency [Blackpool North & Cleveleys], said: “I value personal responsibility. 

I do not believe that immediate food relief should be the role of the government. We can’t make food banks part of the welfare state. 

What I don’t want to do is normalise food poverty."

I wrote and submitted a comment that was accepted and now appears below the article:

"Under Britain's UN obligations the State is obliged to ensure food security for all its citizens. It is currently in breach of those obligations in a similar way as it is in breach of housing obligations, as recently exposed by a UN rapporteur. 

The so-called party of law & order seems to only want to follow the legal requirements that suit; hardly an exemplar to its citizens!"

The news item continued:

"But charities hit back, saying they had been left to face a huge number of people going hungry because of changes to welfare payments." 

"Representatives from debt advice charities and food-growing schemes said they feared the bedroom tax had left people too poor to eat…" 

And "the Poverty Commission warn[s] 1.6m people across the region are in danger of sliding into severe poverty."

Alas there are gullible and uninformed individuals who actually believe much of the rhetoric and polemic spouted by Maynard and others within the ConDem administration and the main-stream media (MSM). One such chap stated about the MP's comments:

"What he says is right, what do these "customers" spend the benefits they get on? Yes there are essential fuel costs but it's sometimes a lifestyle choice, ie have takeaway/supermarket prepacked meals v the cheaper make it yourself meals."(sic)

I felt obliged to stand up for folk…

"In response to James Wales (8.32): many disabled & elderly have to buy pre-packed meals; some due to physical inability to cook (arthritis/pain/spasms/shakes/weakness/etc.); some because they only get 15mins from social care to prepare & cook a meal as well as any other assistance that is required."

I am part of the WoW campaign which is trying to raise awareness of the difficulties, stress and unfortunately tragedies that have been and will continue to be caused by the so-called 'welfare reforms'. If the reader would like to help, please add your signature to the WoWpetition.

Oh, and by the by, this IS the Member of Parliament who described we disabled campaigners as "extremists" putting us on a par with terrorists. Though he did later apologise and attempt to retract the statement.