This was seen on a Facebook, ESA/PIP support group.
Although it arrived on my Twitter feed courtesy of Christina McKelvie, I cannot 100% verify its authenticity. But it does seem to be the kind of thing that no one in their right mind would joke about.
So, this woman has a prognosis of somewhere around 6 months left to live. Presumably getting less fit by the day. Towards the end she will undoubtedly be hospitalised. And ATOS say she can go get a job.
Clearly, of course, she can’t, because, to put not too fine a point on it, no one wants to employ someone who is within 6 months of death, even if at the moment they are fit and well, which, in any case, this woman isn’t.
So to have any income at all, she has to get to a jobcentre to sign on. Pretty much impossible, I’d reckon.
I’m so ashamed Scotland is tied to a regime it didn’t vote for that would even contemplate this kind of barbaric inhuman behaviour. Especially, as I never tire of reminding everyone, as they bang on incessantly, about how they are a Christian country with a Christian monarch and a Christian prime minister.
I’m going to end here before I call the British government in general, the DWP in particular and ATOS, a set of inhuman, heartless bastards.
Oops… too late.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
She has cancer? She could probably work until she spews her lungs up on a Mcburger.
Obviously, she would never be employed in the Ivy.
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McD’s don’t employ anyone over 25, otherwise they’d have to pay the so-called living wage. She’s 61.
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well said that man enough of bleeding heart liberals.
I pay my taxes including full nic contributions.
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LOL, Niko. We don’t want any humanity here, do we?
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Welcome to 21st Century caring sharing Tory Britain. What a bunch of disgusting disrespectful uncaring disease ridden shower of BASTARDS these Tories are!
Time we were out of this xenophobic ageist anti disability non caring greed ridden Tory bullshit broken Britain!
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Y’know, when I read it, I tried hard to put myself in this woman’s position.
I couldn’t of course, but I wondered how it would feel to be abandoned by the state that you have paid taxes into and be told: OK, you’ve been very unlucky and your life will be cut short by a horrible illness, but if you think that in the few months left to you we are going to treat you with just one shred of decency and humanity, you can piss right off.
Rule Britannia, and let’s spend £400 million on doing up one of the queen’s pads.
YUK
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Having gone through a fight with cancer some years ago, lucky not Lung Cancer that this poor woman has. I know exactly how dealing with weekly, or in my case fortnightly chemo and weekly blood tests, that it does, no matter how strong you are at the start, always ends up with your body being well and truly knackered at the very least and in most cases much worse.
I may be wrong here Tris but I’m sure that the idiots making decisions, such as this deplorable one, are not in fact actually Doctors. If I am right in my recall then this goes a long way to explaining the absolute disaster that we currently see taking place.
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The “examinations”, which really are just a set of questions like “Can you stand up?”; Can you walk 25 steps?”; “Can you make a cup of tea?”, are supposedly carried out by “medics”. They may be doctors, nurses, or paramedics. They then send off the questionnaire and the decision is made by the DWP
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As a few people have made mention recently Tris there is one question you missed there … “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?”
Seriously I have read a few people on Twitter mention they have been asked that very question.
I tell you if I was ever asked that question I will NOT be responsible for my actions!
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Arbroath: It’s true that they have been asking people who suffer from depression why they haven’t killed themselves yet. Left to the tender mercies of Atos, the DWP and the British government, I probably would have. But what an utter scandal that is.
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Even if it isn’t actually true and as you say there’s no way to tell, the fact that it is so easily believable in the context of ‘Modern Britain’ speaks volumes.
What I do know is the DWP operates a system of fines for non compliance with the rules which if you have any difficulties which prevent you from responding within their time frame the money gets removed from your bank account in instalments. People who have no one to advocate for them just lose the money. For example £50 for failure to notify them your in hospital. If you can contact them with a good reason they will reverse it, it’s the people that can’t who lose out.
This is small potatoes compared to what the woman above has to put up with but the point is the whole systems geared to claw back money from the least able. Also as far as being abandoned goes look no further than care for the elderly. The cuts to funding are having a profound effect on that.
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Yes. What it seems to come down to is that if you have someone to act for you; someone who will write a really good letter; or engage in a telephone conversation, or if you can get your MP to act on your behalf, you have a chance of getting somewhere. If you are just a poor, sick person, you might as well talk to the bottom of the sea.
What you should never expect is any kind of either common sense or heaven forfend, compassion.
In this “Christian” country, the way we treat our elderly is a nonsense.
Mrs May apparently believes that she will ‘meet her maker’ one day. I hope she is ready to hear his disappointment.
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Year on year Government cuts have turned the care industry into a minimum wage job. Standards have fallen as a result but no one in management in the industry seems very keen to admit this. Staffing ratios are to the bone. There is a crisis currently in recruitment of staff simply because folk who would otherwise have made a career out of caring find themselves better off working elsewhere. Brexit will further exacerbate the situation due to a lack of foreign workers who are being relied upon more and more. Some councils in Scotland are managing to keep some service provision whilst maintaining staff wages but the pressure is on them to hand it all over to the private sector who are mostly profit driven.
If you don’t have a big pot of cash to fund your care then you don’t want to be old. Whisky and a fag anyone?
If May does meet her maker I think she’ll be ok because I think he’s a bit right wing what with all the smiting and such. It’s his son she’ll have to watch out for.
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Now that the Tories have the next ten – fifteen years to practise their art, unimpeded by a proper opposition, I imagine the last vestiges of the welfare state, created by the 1945 government, will be wiped away.
That is why we have to be independent.
I don’t want to get old in Tory Britain, where unless you can afford to make a profit for the health service you would seriously be better getting on with it and dying.
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Ye never know Tris, maybe her maker will be really pleased when she turns up.
“Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”
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LOL Good one, Gerry! Oh I do hope so. She can shovel sh*t right next to Thatcher for 1000 years or so.
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Nothing they do surprises me any more. I feel for that poor lady, I really do. Is there no law in Scotland that could be used to prosecute the people responsible for such abuses? Does no one have any remedy whatsoever against their cruelty and barbarism? I’m not just asking rhetorical questions: are there any legal experts reading the who have any ideas about how to at least sue DWP for the physical and mental anguish it routinely causes vulnerable people.
Declaration of interest: I have just terminated my claim for PIP, because DWP cut it back to the minimum rate when my condition deteriorated, and I decided I could live without £21.80 a week but I could not live without what is left of my health and sanity. Fortunately, I should be able to get by. I too am 61, like the lady with the lung cancer.
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The problem is that it would take someone willing and able to put up a fight.
I would personally start by looking into the laws against (mental) torture, but I’m not a legal expert.
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Well there might be something someone CAN do folks. Apparently the U.K. is the first, as I recall, to be found GUILTY by the United Nations of breeches in Human Rights obligations for the disabled. I wouldn’t go running and shouting this news from the rooftops just yet though. Remember we are talking about the xenophobic heartless greed driven TORIES here. They pay NO attention what so ever to anything or anyone who accuses them of anything!
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/un-declares-uk-s-austerity-policies-breach-international-human-rights
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Blast, please consider my comment above proofread and corrected – I was too trigger-happy with the “Post” button.
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I’m sorry to hear that your condition deteriorated, and I’m at a loss to understand why any sane system would reduce a programme designed to help you when you are less well than you were before.
But then this is the UK.
And this is a Tory, target driven government.
And at least I do understand what they are about.
OK, as you say, you can manage without their help, but the horrible thought is, what would you do if you couldn’t?
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I don’t know, Tris, I really don’t know. However, I already took the big hit when instead of adding the lower rate of mobility allowance, which I had claimed as my condition had deteriorated, to the higher rate of daily living allowance I was already getting – i.e., adding £87.20 to £329.20 every four weeks – they awarded me the lower rate of mobility allowance and took away the daily living allowance completely. However – adding that they did not think they should ever have paid me the £329.20 every four weeks in the first place, – they said they had decided to be kind to me and not try to claw back the overpayment.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but if I claim again, I realize that I will have to be extremely vigilant, whether I feel up to it or not. And get a better lawyer.
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It comes down to being able to afford a good and knowledgeable lawyer.
I’ve friends, a couple who are both lawyers, who have a disabled adult son. The number of times they have had his benefits messed with is incredible. Without their legal expertise and ability to write strongly worded letters he’d have been left to starve.
As others actually have.
I’ve only one other suggestion, and that is your MP. I don’t know who he or she is, but there’s a reasonable chance that you have a pretty good on. Use him/her. It’s what we pay them for. They can’t change the law, but they can stir up some agro at quite a high level. Your appeals go to some “decision makers”; MPs’ letters go to senior management.
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Thanks, Tris! I would indeed ask my MP for help with this, and will do in the future if I need it, but…
Since I made my decision to tell DWP to f*ck off with their £21.80 a week, I have slept like a baby. Now that I’m feeling less worn down, I’ve decided to put in a new claim just as soon as the time limit is up for appealing their decision to approve my decision to end my claim for PIP (Franz Kafka, why did you have to leave us?) so they can’t – sorry, shouldn’t – conflate everything again. The reason for not wanting to try to sort out the old claim is that DWP have made such an incredible, tangled mess of it that it defeated my lawyer, and was certainly more than I could cope with – we just couldn’t work out where to begin. By ending it, I’ve taken Alexander’s approach to the Gordian knot, to be poncily Classical about it – anything else would be Too Much Effort.
I will need help with the application, but this time I am also prepared to take extreme measures to ensure that no interaction between me and DWP from now on goes unwitnessed and unrecorded.
So far, unlike the Home Office, at least DWP have not denied receiving letters I sent to them with proof of delivery, but that may just be a matter of time!
I really hope someone is giving that poor woman with the stage 4 lung cancer some serious, heavy-duty help. Her story has certainly jerked me sharply out of any vestiges of self-pity I was feeling, and made me recognize just how lucky I am in comparison, and how trivial my problems with DWP are compared to hers.
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Understood, Edd. I’m vexed you have had to suffer like that under them.
If you can cope without their miserable payment, so much the better. The most important thing when you’re not well is not to get stressed.
I advise people to leave their phones recording when they are being interviewed by these creeps. They will happily lie to reach their targets.
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I was unashamedly in tears reading that this morning. How can that hypocrite of a PM dare say that she is a Christian. What happened to the “Insomuch as ye do unto these, the least of these my brethren, ye do also unto me” ?
I am incandescent with rage.
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These “Christians” are the ones that give God Botherers a bad name. Blair was another “Christian”.
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I suspect that their “Christianity” is some sort of convenient label.
Cameron told us he was one; Brown and Thatcher too. As you say they give REAL Christians as bad a name Osama Bin Laden gives Muslims or Netanyahu gives Jews.
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Yep, among other things, it’s the hypocrisy that makes you seethe.
If I were a real Christian I would be incandescent at her making political capital out of calling her claim to be of the faith.
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I hope I go to Hell, I’m going to make these basterts SUFFER.
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LOL. That’s the spirit.
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Aucheorn, I’ll be right there beside you.
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And all the media are interested in is how unfair The Chancellor is to self-employed folk! Probably due to many journalists now being on SE contracts!
Those in the know and those keeping track of this gov’s atrocities have been telling us that the people who are going to be hammered are those claiming some form of benefits.
Not for those folk the media shouting out “unfair”.
Such utter cruelty shown is why we need to be an independent country and show the rUK how we look after our most in need.
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Very true. With inflation biting and benefits being held down yet again, we must be getting to the stage where it is literally impossible to live on the money paid.
Of course, Philip Hammond doesn’t need to worry about that. He’s a multi-millionaire.
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One might be forgiven for asking why the media is so silent on such travesties . The Scottish media seems content to print SNP bad features .
I never know whether to describe them as shameful or shameless.
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It’s a good question. I’d same they were shameless and their actions shameful.
They can’t see past telling us how completely crap we are and how, uniquely, we would be utterly incapable of running a successful northern country for ourselves without the aid of the English.
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England’s Tories get away with it because HM right wing press and people like Jeremy Kyle demonise those who are out of work.
Certainly,there will always be those who will swing the lead,especially the tax dodging Tories but mostly these are people who through no fault of their own have fallen on hard times and or poor health.
Nicola is right about the next referendum,not about flag waving and caber tossing but about what sort of country we wish to live in and Tory England is not it,for me at any rate.
Everyone should be valued for who they are and not just seen as being on the wrong side of a Tory balance sheet.
Notice the diatribe is back to the “Living within our means” rubbish again when all they have done during their time in office is create a vast amount of national debt and claimed that it is the poor who are responsible.
They are responsible.
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and the snpBAD
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Obviously.
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First of all, if we are supposed to be living within our means why in the name of heavens are we spending half a billion on one house for an elderly couple who already have many other houses at their disposal?
Secondly, why are we now building a railway between two cities only 90 minutes apart; a railway that will shave a whole 20 minutes off the journey at a cost of some hundred billion+?
Thirdly, why does a little island, a broke little island, need nuclear weapons?
Fourthly, why are we doing up a gothic pile of a parliament suitable for the 19th century at a fantastic cost of £10 billion +. There MUST be a cheaper alternative.
Fifthly, what on earth is Hammond on about, not wanting to leave debts to our children. The Tories have doubled the debt. It is £1.8 trillion. Is he going to pay that back out of his tax-free deals in the BVI?
Yes, by and large, he’ll get away with it. Although as the Mail and Express now seem to have become UKIP/Fascist papers, he can’t really guarantee their support for right-wing policies. They have to be ULTRA right-wing to suit these papers now.
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tris
The fact is the neo-liberals in this world/dystopian regard any outcry
of righteous anger as proof positive of the correctness of their actions.
The contrast is between hard working taxpaying? families and individuals
with lazy old pretendy sick unemployed scroungers..
so somebody dies alone in pain and squalor they brought this upon themselves
they should of been thrifty and careful with what money they had.
And the truth is many people agree with that view of their fellow human beings.
Look at Iain Duncan smith banging on about the unfairness of asking the self employed
paying a fairer amount towards the nation they live in and whose peoples they
exploit in pursuit of money.
He certainly didnt and still doesn’t give a shit about the most vulnerable in uk society.
The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a Wilderness.
Havelock Ellis
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Can’t really disagree with that, Niko.
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For years I listened to callers on radio complaining about scroungers on the dole receiving £50/£60 pounds a week benefit payment.
When the 2008 crash and some of them lost their jobs they were on the radio complaining about having to live on £50/£60 pounds a week.
Now they are back on the radio complaining about benefit scroungers.
These people see themselves as deserving of help during difficult times, but not you.
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A really good point, Michael. 2008 and its aftermath should have proved to folk that it could be round the corner for any of us.
Economic downturn, debilitating and long term illness; failed marriage/relationship and homelessness aren’t things that only hit the feckless.
It can happen to you.
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If the situation actually is as described what the woman needs is a form DS 1500. Her GP/Consultant can provide this for her if asked. McMillan nurse should be able to advise.
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I’ll post that to Christina. She may be able to pass it on. I suspect that her nurse will already know about that, though.
Thanks, Jake.
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Reason 2843 why the Tories are utter cunts
http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/maximus-admits-using-brutal-and-dangerous-suicide-questions/
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So, it’s been approved by the government.
The next step is, I assume, to issue them with self disposal kits (as long as they aren’t Tory voters)?
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Latest from Ipsos Mori
In full-time work: Yes 53% No 47%
In part-time work: Yes 57% No 43%
Retired: Yes 34% No 66%
Looking good.
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Grump. This confirms my view that most of the people I grew up with are eejits, and I will always be in a minority. Double grump. (Ed Freeman, aged 61¾)
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… or masochists …
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Combined age in our household 143, and we have both been in favour of and worked towards Independence
for as longer than we have been married. (48years this year).
A lot of our activists in Moray are in the seniors bracket.
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Oh yes, I know that there are plenty older people in the independence movement, but ll the statistics continue to show that the older you are the less likely you want to be independent, or to be a part of the EU.
There are also a fair number of unionists who are only 17 🙂
Happy anniversary when it comes 🙂
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We need to get the pensioners converted and the young people off their backsides. But yes. Looking very good.
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We don’t need to win the pensioners over.We need to persuade them to sit on their hands. If they want to vote against us, stay at home. We want a bright future, not a faded memory of a shiny glorious past. Tomorrow is for your grandchildren. They want their country to be free. If you don’t want to come with them don’t vote. There is no risk in it for older people. The rUK will pay your state pensions, and your private pensions will pay out wherever you live. All the risk is for the young, and they want independence.
I have looked at your post a couple of times today. It is difficult to legislate for compassion. How do you operate such a system in a rigid rules based establishment like the UK public service? There are millions of people who interact with the state on so many levels. Sick people. Those on benefits. People with physical or mental impairments. Taxpayers, prisoners, soldiers, nurses, immigrants, etc. And it is inevitable that some will be treated in what are clearly stupid ways, or ways lacking clearly in compassion. But while every one of these cases which comes to our attention is more sad, or sick, or bizarre, it is not the norm. Most people get a reasonably satisfactory outcome. Not every patient gets a botched operation. Not every EU national is told to leave the country next week. Not every prisoner is a miscarriage of justice case.
I googled the DS1500 form your earlier correspondent mentioned. So it looks at least that there is a systematic remedy for the ridiculous situation you have highlighted. Maybe what we need is for people to use welfare rights officers/ CAB and their elected politicians. Christina runs regular surgeries. Anyone in Larkhall & Stonehouse can have her office take up their case.
It is easy to get depressed at all these cases, but it is not the norm. There are lots of them, but its not all of them. Similarly you are unlikely to be murdered tomorrow or burgled tonight. It happens, but its not the norm.
I hope this lady’s case is quickly resolved. The jobsworths who made the decision – or elected by malice or incompetence to keep that DS1500 system a secret – find themselves on the wrong end of a stupid decision by the state one day. But evil regimes find no hardship recruiting torturers, and there’s always someone who has insufficient self respect to do any job. Shame on them
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No. It’s not the norm, David, I agree, but there are far too many cases of people being treated unfairly in a system which is disastrously underfunded and with unreasonable and often unattainable targets being set.
I worked for a project that was designed to help seriously disadvantaged people into work, but the pressure from management to reach ever more difficult targets was such that you couldn’t afford to “waste time” on really hard to help people.
And yes, there is help out there for people who have been maltreated. But it’s not always that easy to obtain if you are not able to cope with the horrors of the system.
My solicitor friend glides over it and whips ass on her way. But if she were not there, her son would sink in contacts with officialdom.
It would be better if we carried the older generation with us. But we also need to get through to the 16- 45 year olds that they MUST get out and vote, or risk having their lives seriously affected by the votes of their grandparents, who, let’s be honest, may only have a few more years to live.
Older people are entitled to their opinions and their bias. It has to be up to the young to take action to save themselves from being stuck in the UK.
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You seen this? From Netherlands – elections next week. Addressed to the young people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvBMjZRC3XY WARNING. Sweary words.
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Excellent advice.
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I f@@@ing hate the Tories.
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Yeh ditto with great big knobs on. Fuck them all.
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Twice.
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They are easy to hate. Especially when they come up with this crap. Although, to be fair it was Labour who started this.
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trispw,
For some reason I can’t reply directly to your post of March 10, 2017 at 16:19.
I have been a member of the SNP for quite a while now, and at 68 intend to be a member until I die. Or we achieve independence, whichever is first. There are thrawn old folk on both sides of this debate!
Please, do not write off the older generation on the basis of statistics. There is, apparently, a ‘Pensioners for Yes’ group that I intend to join as soon as I find it’s address.
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Hi Douglas,
pensionersforindependence@gmail.com
good luck 🙂
Jason
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Thanks Jason…
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Oh, Douglas, I’m not writing anyone off. I know there are plenty of independentistas in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I remember there was one lady of 1100 who was featured on voting day in 2014.
But all statistics have shown that the older you are the less likely you are to want independence,whereas 16 – 25 are overwhelmingly for it.
My point is that I want us to persuade as many as we can vote with us, and we also need to get the youngsters to realise that it won;t just happen unless they get off their backsides and VOTE!
Again no criticism of the Young intended. There were many many teens who were out voting on the way to school last time.
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Message for Bill who emailed me. I tried to respond on mail but the message keeps come back undelivered.
Hi Bill,
It was on Jolyon Maugham QC’s Twitter.
It originated from the OECD.
Hope that helps.
Tris
🙂
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When contacting MPs/MSPs you don’t need to confine yourself to your own specific representatives. Send copies to, especially, high-profile politicians and certainly to the leaders of Scottish political parties irrespective of which party.
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The more, the merrier.
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I would find out the name / names of those that said your fit for work.
Then send their names to the Mirror ( England ) ( National Scotland )
Name and shame them, let them explain why, was it for a bonus they get or some other form of financial gain.
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Of course the decision is actually made by people you never meet. They are called, in a 1984 kind of way, Decision Makers”.
However, they are acting on the evidence of the Atos so-called “medics”, so why not?
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