This is what Liz Kendall’s plans mean for disabled people
This is what Liz Kendall’s plans mean for disabled people. The story refers to events that happened during the Tory years but Kendall means to continue and amplify Tory policy.
This Writer expects the death toll to be appalling – and to be kept from public knowledge.
Here’s The Big Issue with one survivor’s story:
Angela Cater had a stroke days after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stopped her disability benefits.
She believed she had no choice but to “starve herself” due to the loss of income and she lost three stone in nine months.
As the Labour government plots to push more people into work and off of disability benefits, Cater is “frightened” of the damaging impact this could have on people’s health.
She explained:
Cater was awarded personal independence payment (PIP) and employment and support allowance (ESA) to help her cope with the additional costs of poor health.
However, five years later, she was reassessed for PIP and the DWP decided she should no longer receive the benefit.
“There was no justification for it whatsoever,” Cater claimed, arguing that her assessor seemed unable to understand she could not carry out basic tasks.
Days after losing her PIP, Cater also was also told she would no longer receive financial support to help her pay her council tax.
“The income I had was cut in three days, just before Christmas,” she said. “After receiving all these letters, I had a second stroke, which caused further damage.”
Can anyone doubt that it was losing the benefit that triggered the second stroke? The DWP would hotly contest such a claim, though.
Cater sought the help of a benefits advisor at Citizens Advice. She put through an initial appeal for PIP, known as a mandatory reconsideration, which was rejected.
It then went to tribunal, where the rejection was overturned and she was awarded the full rate of PIP, but by that point it had been nine months since she had lost her benefits.
“During those nine months, I was left on what was left of my savings, and I was rapidly dwindling down. I fed my cat. I paid my mortgage and my bills, but I starved myself during that time. I went down to five and a half stone. I lost three stone in weight.
“My family and friends looked at me like I was a skeleton. I looked bloody awful.”
So in effect, the Department for Work and Pensions carries out a policy of starvation against people with disabilities in the UK.
This Writer has no doubt that Liz Kendall’s plans, which include cutting off the benefits of people with severe mental illness if they fail to take jobs (that probably don’t exist for them), will widen this starvation scheme to a much larger number of benefit claimants.
Here comes the gut-punch:
Years ago, when I tried to get the DWP to reveal the number of people who had died after being pushed off-benefit because they allegedly didn’t deserve it, officials said they could not provide figures relating to anybody who died more than two weeks after losing their benefit.
Now look at the time-frame described by Angela Cater: nine months.
She could have died in that time. Fortunately, she didn’t. But This Site has covered the stories of many other people who did die in similar circumstances. None of them would have been included in the death statistics the DWP provided to me, which means the DWP failed to provide accurate figures of those who died as a consequence of its decisions.
I can only conclude that, having been briefed on the DWP’s activities over the last 14 years, and being determined to continue enacting its policies, Liz Kendall intends to ensure that as many people die as possible – and that the people of the UK continue to be deceived about it.
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ah how manys died literally hundreds of thousands but will the peasants wake up to government policy of culling the stock wake up before they come for you
My belief is that it is being deliberately hidden from the majority of people.
“Eliminating Useless Eaters” – Sound Familiar?
The Right-Wing Arrogance knowns no bounds, those who deem to know better than the Health Professionals who diagnosed these patients in the first place.
Kendall’s vision of visiting “Mental Hospitals” is severely outdated, mainly all that exists now at General Hospitals are Short-Stay Acute Units and the remainder is done in the Community.
Is she suggesting that untrained Jobcentre Staff pressure Acutely Psychotic patients into getting a Job at the height of their illness?
That is my understanding of the situation.