.
David Cameron had spoken so often about the importance of the NHS in the life of his family and how very frequently they needed to call on its services, we thought maybe he understood, and we were wary and anxious yes, but hoped it would indeed not be as bad under him as we feared.The Prime Minister also had a disabled father....
Our tentative hopes proved so so
wrong, and at least 32
die a week after failing the test for ESA, the replacement for
Inca pacity benefit brought in by Camerons coalition .
Rather than empathy and
understanding, Cameron's experiences appear to have had the opposite
effect and my job centre advisers have spoken to me of being forced
to sign terminally ill people as fit for work. . ATOS, the group
contracted by the government to deny disability benefits to claimants
and find current claimants fit for work and so remove their benefits
has
told an incontinent woman to 'wear nappy' in order to go to work
In another case, and these are certainly not isolated , a
Mum-of-three
was told to find a job by Atos chiefs.. weeks later she died of a
brain tumour.
Would
Cameron and
the minister for work and pensions, Iain
Duncan Smith want this treatment for sick and disabled members
of their own family ? Probably not, but the point is that they will
never have to imagine the effect it has to be treated in this manner
and what it is
to be in that position.
There is a saying
that has some different versions and the origins are shrouded in
fable about trying
to walk a mile in someone elses shoes, I also know it as the
native American version Walking
a mile in someone elses moccasins
I also remember with much admiration
, an elderly lady who was born in and until recently lived in the
same town as myself. She often spoke to me of having had polio as a
child and all that she owed to the support of her clearly wonderful
mother. Some years later, when she was working and trying to care for
her by then elderly mother who needed support herself, she founded a
local branch of the carer's support group The
Princess Royal Trust For Carers. She was involved in local
politics and highly respected locally, b ut she never, ever forgot
her roots and since we lived in a borough of wide social and
financial division , I knew what she meant when she told me that
although her group was open to all, there was a huge difference
between being disabled in a big house with lots of money in one end
of the borough, and being disabled on benefits in a council flat at
the other end of it.
Now we have our Home Secretary
Theresa May, of
the huge shoe collection and fan of kitten heels and leapard print ,
who has presided on her watch over a vicious reform of the UK
immigration laws, telling us that she has been diagnosed
with Type 1 diabetes. Insisting of course that it is business as
usual and it makes
no difference to her ability to do her job
I agree !!....many diabetics
successfully work....and on the other hand, many, especially those
diagnosed later in life when they might be having to consider a job
change will find that
Conditions
such as diabetic retinopathy may inhibit chances of gaining positions
that require good visual clarity. Some employers will perceive a job
as being a danger to your condition, and this may further complicate
an application. And that As
an insulin user, the following jobs (under current legislation) are
unavailable to you.
Armed forces......
- Fire service
- Ambulance service
- Prison service
- Airline pilots and Airline Cabin crew
- Air traffic control
- Offshore work
Somehow..I can't see it happening because as we found with the Prime Minister, experience does not necessarily produce empathy.
Valerie
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