Middlesbrough Council - News Forum - Setting a light to the News

Atos Nurse: 'Sick firm told us to catch out disabled people'

Sick firm told us to catch out disabled people'
The ruthless Tory drive to remove thousands of seriously ill and disabled people from benefits was exposed this week
as a nurse employed to assess them spoke out to Socialist Worker.
Jean, a former employee of Atos Healthcare in Scotland, exposed a process she described as a “sham”.
Atos is a multinational firm contracted by the DWP

http://boardreader.com/thread/S_Worker_ ... X7fds.html

Disability Denial Factories
A poster satirising - and lamenting - the shocking practises of ATOS



Disability Denial Factories
A new poster satirising - and lamenting - the shocking practises of ATOS -
the sickness and disability assessors (or greedy corporate henchmen) of the Department of Work and Pensions.
With sick and disabled people declared fit to work - and then some having died before returning to work.
With people driven to worsening physical and mental health, some having breakdowns - and even suicides -
all as a result of the practises of ATOS and the DWP.

Consider the almost laughable case of the postman deemed unfit to work
and told to take medical retirement by the Royal Mail's healthcare services provider; ATOS!

who then fails the DWP medical assessment and is told that he is fit to work by the assessors -

yes - ATOS!!!

You just couldn't make it up! Scandalous.

The poster is inspired by a German propoganda poster of the 1930's, and a sign - a popular slogan -
made infamous by it's appearance above the gates at Auschwitz, originally "Arbeit Macht Frei" or 'Work sets you free'.

I should add that ATOS medical assessment centres have been referred to as 'disability denial factories'
(a criticism originally aimed at UNUM Provident - the vast US insurance company which having wreaked havoc in the US is now also 'advising' the UK government) -
hence a further reason for basing this on the original propaganda poster.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/november5/6648659279/

Grimsby man told he is fit to work despite blood clots, septicaemia and ulcers…

DO you think this man looks fit for work?



Specialist doctors tell him he can't work. But doctors who decide who is entitled to benefits tell him he can.
http://dwpexamination.org/forum/horror- ... it-for-me/

No win situation: James Major is calling for changes in the way benefits are allocated.
James Major, 33, of Harold Street, Grimsby, says he has nearly died on three separate occasions after being forced to work when he felt he was unfit, and is now calling for changes in the way benefits are allocated.
His situation has led to Grimsby MP Austin Mitchell labelling the assessment system a "shambles" and urging him to appeal.
Fisherman Mr Major suffers with blood clots and open ulcers which make walking painful and often cause him to be bed-bound.
He regularly has to travel to London for specialist medical care and has been told by professors at both Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals that he is unfit for work.
However, doctors who decide who is eligible for Employment and Support Allowances, deem Mr Major to be fit and healthy.
ESA, which is part of the Government's benefits scheme, provides financial help to people who are unable to work because of illness or disability.
Mr Major claims he is now in a no win situation where if he returns to work he will be risking his life.
He has been brought back to land from his job at sea twice since 2010 as a result of his condition, and each time, doctors said his life was in grave danger.
The father-of-three said: "The ulcers on my legs started three years after I scratched myself on a cement mixer.
"The cut got infected and I ended up with blood clots in my legs and lungs. I was in hospital and also got pneumonia and nearly died.
"I started claiming sick benefit because I obviously couldn't work.
"After this I went for a medical at the Job Centre and failed it, but the doctor there said I was fit enough to work. At the time I could only walk with crutches
"I was told that I would have to claim Job Seekers Allowance (JSA).
"But when I went to sign up for JSA, the staff there said I was clearly not able to work so I couldn't claim.
"I didn't have a choice but to go back to sea."
But being on his feet all the time only worsened his condition, and he went on to develop septicaemia.
After his second dash back to land, he tried to claim again, but was told the same as he was the previous time.
"I was advised to take legal action because of the situation and we won at a tribunal.
"I was ecstatic and we also got some money backdated."
Although the situation was resolved for a few months, Mr Major then had to go for a routine medical review which once again deemed him fit for work.
He added: "But I failed the medical and I am now back at square one.
"I now have to appeal again like the first time round.
"There needs to be a change in the way the system is run because I now have the choice of either not going to work and not be able to live or go and risk dying."
Austin Mitchell, MP for Grimsby, said the ESA assessment system is proving to be a "shambles".
He added: "I would advise this gentleman to appeal the decision and to get in touch with me as soon as possible so that I can advise him.
"A lot of appeals against ESA are being successful, which suggests there is something wrong with the assessment system.
"The problem is that even once the ESA has been granted, people are having a long wait for the money they are entitled to."

Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety (2012)
All doctors have a duty to act when they believe patients’ safety is at risk, or that patients’ care or dignity is being compromised.

Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety (2012) sets out our expectation that all doctors will, whatever their role, take appropriate action to raise and act on concerns about patient care, dignity and safety.

The guidance came into effect on 12 March 2012 replaces Raising concerns about patient safety (2006).
http://www.gmc-uk.org/Raising_concerns_ ... 148865.pdf
http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_ ... /11860.asp
http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_ ... ncerns.asp

The DWP really don't care do they. I hope this poor man wins his appeal.
- Chumps, Birmingham, 30/4/2012 17:35
Click to rate Rating 1027
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1tcWX2Ps9
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... l#comments

A spokesman from the Department for Work and Pensions, told the Grimsby Telegraph:

'We shouldn't automatically write off a person's ability to work, solely on the basis of a health condition or disability.
'That's why the Work Capability Assessment doesn't focus on a particular diagnosis, but on the actual abilities of an individual,
and whether that person – with the right support – could undertake suitable work.

'People who are too sick or disabled will continue to receive our unconditional support

but those who are able to work will get specialist help through the Work Programme. Customers unhappy with the decision made can appeal.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1tcX7b2g7

MIDDLESBROUGH ATOS AT WORK

ATOS worker sneers at "down and outs"
By Andrew Penman on August 10, 2011 11:00 PM in Health
Messing up in spades is how we've previously described Atos Healthcare, the private firm with a £100million Government contract to assess who deserves sickness benefits and who's faking it.

Last month it was revealed that 150,000 people who were refused full benefits by Atos had that decision overturned on appeal.

If that makes Atos sound heartless, it's nothing compared to what one of its assessors has been posting on her Facebook page in Middlesbrough.

Among Debbie Carr's comments about the sick and disabled, there's: "Oh god another day here with the down and outs arggggg!" And: "Well that's the end of my holidays! Back to work tomorrow with the down and outs I suppose..."

And: "Thank god it's Friday last day in this god forsaken place with the down and outs!"

The company told us: "Atos Healthcare is investigating the claims made about inappropriate comments written by one of its healthcare professionals on a social media website. Atos Healthcare is committed to providing a high quality, professional service to the DWP and expects the same of all its employees. Where it is found that these standards are not adhered to, this is taken very seriously and appropriate disciplinary action taken."

Debbie Carr put the phone down when we called. None of the comments on her page - now removed - were protected by a privacy wall and they could be read by anyone, including those being assessed by Atos.

Among them was a disability claimant who said: "It is humiliating and embarrassing enough having to go for one of these tests without Atos employees setting up Facebook accounts and having a laugh at our misfortune."

Another said: "I am hoping that you will support disabled and genuinely sick people everywhere and do what you can to stamp out this despicable behaviour. Society is being divided into two groups, those who are fortunate enough to have their health and employment, and those without either. The first group are being encouraged to criminalise and vilify the latter group."

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation ... n-and.html

After yesterday find of Debbie Carr calling the sick & disabled that she deals with while working for ATOS as a HCP “Down & Outs” on her Facebook page yet another ATOS employee, this time a Medical Examination Centre Administrator called Anthony Treasure is found calling the sick & disabled he deals with at work “Parasitic Wankers” on his Facebook page with this being 2 that have turned up in less than 24 hours, Black Triangle wonders how many more there are and if this is institutional within ATOS ?
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2011/0 ... k-profile/
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0# ... 05&bih=544

Hypocritical Oath!
07.08.2011 16:35
It's also worth pointing out that the people who proclaim to be doctors that are working for Atos and other similar private contractors are doing so in direct contravention of their own Hypocratic Oaths, which state that they should use their work to heal and protect others, not to be put them out on the streets!
The sooner Atos(sers) lose their contract the better.
Down with Atos!
http://indymedia.co.uk/en/2011/08/483101.html?c=on

Atos Origin says net profit soars in first-half 2011
Published: 27/07/2011 at 11:32 PM Online news:
French information technology consultancy Atos Origin reported on Wednesday a 66.0-percent jump in net profit for the first half of 2011.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/compute ... -half-2011

Vicky Ayech August 10, 2011 at 6:02 pm I wrote to my MP
Dear Richard Harrington,
I think you should reconsider Atos’s contract with the government to
handle the assessments of the sick and disabled.
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2011/0 ... k-profile/
The above seems to confirm their attitude, or is that what you intend?
After all, government departments release data in ways intended to
demonize the sick and disabled and Atos seems to have a remit to deny
as many as possible the benefits they should get.
In addition the penalties in their contract for poor performance, which
70% wrong decisions must surely be, are not invoked and so in times of
economic crisis when many are suffering you fail to recoup what the
country is entitled to. This seems to be morally, if not legally,
wrong.
Yours sincerely,
The reply
Thank you for your email.
I was very shocked to see the derogatory way that staff at Atos have talked about their clients. I am not in a position to comment on this individual case, however I am sure that Atos are taking the correct disciplinary measures as any other company would.
The company, and the Department for Work and Pensions, are not working to deny benefits to those who truly need them. Over the last decade, too little attention was given to helping people claiming Incapacity Benefit. Many of these people would like to return to work and I strongly believe that we cannot waste the talent of these people. Too many people with disabilities, including mental health issues, are being held back from fulfilling their potential, and are not getting the right help and support they need to move into work.
The Government maintains that people who cannot work because of a disability or illness should never be forced to work and should receive support through the benefit system. However, we now know that many new claimants of sickness benefits are in fact able to return to work. That is why the Government is also turning its attention to existing claimants who were simply abandoned on Incapacity Benefit by the last Government.
I know that the Government wants to ensure that the WCA is as fair and accurate as possible. It has accepted all of Professor Harrington’s recommendations from the first year of his independent review and have already put in place his recommendations to create a network of “mental health, intellectual and cognitive champions” in each Medical Examination Centre to spread best practice and build understanding of these conditions. In consultation with charities such as Mind, Professor Harrington is now looking at the way mental health is assessed in the Work Capability Assessment.
Kind regards,
Richard Harrington MP

What a treasure Anthony Treasure is. Treasure is an Administrator for ATOS Healthcare. You know those oh so sensitive souls who run the Government’s testing of Incapacity Benefit claimants and soon those claiming Disability Living Allowance.

There is no PR buff from this buffoon. Nothing about treating ‘customers’ in the a caring and kind way. Treasure calls disabled claimants ‘parasitic wankers’. Not that he is the only one to do this. One Debbie Carr, an assessor in Middlesborough complained about having to work with 'down and outs'.

http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/at ... abled.html

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP, Tom Blenkinsop, today called on government benefit ministers to ‘urgently investigate’ the reported comments of a medical assessor employed by Atos Origin, who undertake medical assessments for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) on people claiming Invalidity and Disability Benefit, and who, on her personal Facebook page called claimants she was assessing ‘down and outs’. Tom said “This case, involving a Middlesbrough-based Atos Origin assessor called Debbie Carr, seems to be a worrying one, given her responsible position of trust for clients referred to Atos Origin by the DWP. According to a Daily Mirror report, her Facebook page (which has now been hurriedly deleted) says such things as:

“Oh god another day here with the down and outs arggggg!”, “Well that’s the end of my holidays! Back to work tomorrow with the down and outs I suppose…” and “Thank god it’s Friday last day in this god forsaken place with the down and outs!”

http://tomblenkinsop.com/2011/09/03/tom ... l-advisor/

Facts
DWP Treat The Disabled With Less Rights Than Criminals
In law, if a person is suspected of committing an offence, they have the right:-

1] To proper representation at formal interview, usually a lawyer;

2] To have any interview taped on a police grade state supplied dual recording machine.

At the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) and their contractor ATOS “Medical Assessment” people, or to term it appropriately the “Work Capability Assessment” (WCA) providers, these rights are refused, or obstructed, with many “Medical Assessors” simply terminating a WCA and walking out of the assessment to the severe prejudice of the patient.

The DWP do, in fact, treat the disabled as lesser human beings. The disabled are denied basic Human Rights that even suspected criminals are afforded.

Why is this important? Two main reasons. There are numerous cases where the findings of an ATOS “Medical Examiner” enters WCA data into their LiMA assessment laptop that turns out to differ wildly from the actual recollection of the patient.

To such an extent that Sir Bob Russell, MP for Colchester is quoted from a question he presented in the House of Commons chamber and minuted by the official Hansard record as stating:-

“T4. [76012] Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): Further to the Atos question asked earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott), does the Secretary of State agree that the company is not fit for purpose, that it treats many claimants in an unacceptable way, and that, frankly, it is time that its contract was terminated?”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 4-0001.htm

The second reason is that there are a huge volume of APPEALS to the ATOS-DWP Work Capability Assessments. It is natural justice, and in many cases the law, that citizens have the right for a proper, neutral and ACCURATE record of EXACTLY what was said and by whom at such an official and materially important interview as the WCA. Not least for when the all too often APPEAL process commences.

There should be an accurate and universal dual Home Office grade recording system made available to any and all patients who wish a formal record of their ATOS-DWP WCA “Medical Assessment”. This is plain and fair justice.

Why are the DWP and/or ATOS resisting this? Are they not aware that it gives the impression these DWP/ATOS WCA “Medical Assessments” have something to hide? Perhaps an embarrassment of riches that the DWP now have in the VAST number of disabled people being miraculously “cured” of disability, diseases and ailments.

The fact however remains that even with this miracle ATOS-DWP “cure” many patients declared fit-for-work die within weeks of being “healed” by ATOS and the DWP ……

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... rry-newman

In some style and fortitude, with gallows humour, Mr Larry Newman said to his wife shortly before he died, and as doctors put him on a ventilator, was: “It’s a good job I’m fit for work.”

He was trying to make her laugh, she says, but it was also a reflection of how upset he had been by the conclusion of the medical test.

Larry Newman’s widow, Sylvia says:

“He was so hurt by it. It made him so upset that they thought he was lying, and he wasn’t,” she says. “I think it added to him just giving up.”

Mrs Newman has lodged an official complaint, with the help of Citizens Advice staff, highlighting 12 inconsistencies in the report by the Atos assessor. It said her husband had been unaccompanied ….

“I was with him, although in his medical report they claimed that I was in the waiting room,”

…. she says. The report says that Mr Newman’s pulse was fine, that he had no scars on his chest and that he managed to climb on to the examination bed without any problem. Mrs Newman says that her husband did not get on to the examination bed, that his pulse was not taken, and that the assessor did not look at his chest, otherwise he would have seen scars.

“He never touched Larry, he never took his pulse. There were endless inaccuracies,” she added, describing the report as “make-believe”.

http://calumslist.org/facts/

Incapacity lies uncovered
8 September 2005

Benefits and Work’s attempts to get hold of a copy of the highly confidential LiMA incapacity benefit software, worth many millions of pounds and paid for in part by the taxpayer, has uncovered lies about its ownership which may reach as far as the cabinet. If Maria Eagle, minister for disabled people, did not deliberately mislead MPs in a statement to the Commons, then either the DWP are lying in order to protect the business interests of Atos Origin - the multinational company which carries out medicals on their behalf - or the company itself is lying to DWP staff.

In addition, the DWP has made the astonishing claim that it doesn’t have a copy of the software, used to assess people’s capacity for work, and doesn’t even know, except in the most general sense, how it works.

Breach of justice
LiMA (Logic integrated Medical Assessment) is a computer programme introduced by SchlumbergerSema (now Atos Origin), the company which won the contract to provide medical services on behalf of the DWP. It’s purpose is to carry out incapacity for work medicals with as little interference as possible from doctors. The computer decides which questions a doctor can ask the claimant and which points to advise a decision maker to award. The doctor can disagree with the computer but must explain their reasons for doing so. The system allows medicals to be carried out more cheaply and produces final reports which are legible, even if not more accurate. It has been fiercely criticised by claimants and their representatives, its findings are frequently dismissed by appeal tribunals and even a social security commissioner has warned that it may lead to more mistakes being made in assessments.

As far back July 2003 we published an article 'Mouse driven' incapacity medicals breach human rights? in which we argued that it was likely that SchlumbergerSema (now Atos Origin) would “jealously guard its copyright and decline to let the public or advice workers have access to the system.” We also argued that if the claimant is unfairly prevented from being able to understand the way in which the decision was reached – which questions the computer decided to let the doctor ask and which it decided not to, for example, - this may be a breach of natural justice and render a decision unfair. This is because a claimant has the right to know how a decision about entitlement was reached and to see all the evidence used.

In the case of computer generated assessments that evidence should include all the multiple choice questions which the doctor answered in relation to the claimant and all the ones which the doctor was not given the opportunity to answer by the computer. At the moment the claimant is only permitted to see the options that the doctor chose, not the ones they rejected or the ones that were never put to them.

One horse race
We also argued that the fact that assessments were now being made using a programme owned by SchlumbergerSema would mean that they were bound to win the Medical Services contract when it came up for renewal in 2005. Other bidders would be unable to compete given that they would have to start from scratch retraining doctors to use a different method of assessment.

We talked to Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions spokesperson Paul Holmes about our concerns and he put questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about the software in February 2004. One of the questions he asked was:

“What assessment he has made of the implications of tying the Personal Capability Assessment into the Logic Integrated Medical Assessment software for which SchlumbergerSema own the copyright; what assessment he has made of the impact on the contract renewal process in 2005; and if he will make a statement”.

Maria Eagle’s reply on behalf of the Secretary of State was unequivocal:

“SchlumbergerSema (now Atos Origin) do not own the copyright of the LiMA software. The current Medical Services contract provides that Intellectual Property Rights for Evidence Based Medicine and the LiMA software are vested in the Department.”

Security clearance required
We were somewhat astonished by this: most of the cost of developing the software had been borne by the private sector company, why would they give away the ownership? But there seemed to be nothing we could do about it at the time so we left the matter there.

This year two things changed. Atos Origin, as we had predicted, won the half a billion pound contract to carry out medicals for the DWP for the next five years and the Freedom of Information Act came into force.

Accordingly, we applied to the DWP under the Act for a copy of the software. As regular visitors will know, the DWP refused, claiming that the software will only run on networked, server based PCs, not standalone PCs. We demanded a review of this refusal on the grounds that what sort of computer Benefits and Work own is none of the DWP’s business and certainly not grounds for refusing a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, which makes no mention of taking into account the applicants IT resources.

The DWP responded by once again claiming that there is no standalone version of the software but, clearly feeling unsure of their ground, added another reason for refusal. They claimed that the software is the intellectual property of Atos Origin IT Services and bears the following copyright notice:

“The copyright of this computer system is vested in Atos Origin IT Services UK Ltd and the information contained herein is confidential and only users with the approved level of security may access this computer system. The information in this computer system and the source code, either in whole or part, must not be reproduced or disclosed to others . . . “

We contacted the DWP again and asked whether copyright of the software had ever belonged to the DWP. We received an unusually rapid written response stating that “Sema Group UK [now part of Atos] has always held the Lima computer system copyright”.

Lies, damned lies and LiMA software
Somebody is lying: government departments and multinational companies don’t make innocent mistakes about ownership of intellectual property or basic contractual provisions. On the contrary, they guard their copyright jealously and fight bitterly and at vast expense over ownership of tiny bits of computer code, let alone whole programmes. And even in the twisted and spun world of government departments, it cannot both be true that the intellectual property rights “are vested in the Department” as Maria Eagle stated and also that Atos “has always held the Lima computer system copyright”.

Ordinarily, of course, here at Benefits and Work we would take no interest in a disagreement between the government and a multinational company about copyright ownership. But this matter goes right to the heart of what we do care about, because the assessment of sick and disabled people for small sums of benefit has now been sucked into this seedy world of profit driven secrecy and misinformation. The result is that disabled people are being denied, on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, their most basic right to be treated justly by the state.

And it won’t stop here: multinationals companies have already been engaged to computerise DLA assessment and decision making and potentially put scrutiny of that process too, beyond the reach of disabled people and their representatives. A computerised alternative of the Disability Handbook, the Customer Case Management System, is to be used alongside the new DLA forms being piloted in Bootle and Manchester. No information about the new system had been released.

Outraged of Foxham
There may, in the end, be little that Benefits and Work can do about all of this. We don’t have the friends in high places that agencies such as Child Poverty Action Group and Disability Alliance have and they, unfortunately, seem to have little interest in trying to tear down the barriers of commercial confidentiality and shareholder interests behind which DWP decision making is quickly disappearing.

But our complaint has gone to the Information Commissioner, our demand for an explanation has been sent to Maria Eagle and we will continue, with the support of our members, to root out and publish the truth about what is being done to our benefits system by increasingly unaccountable government departments and their corporate accomplices.

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/n ... -uncovered

I just thought you might like an update about the Audio Recording Process.

I have been reliably informed by a credible source that certain shenanigans are being played out by Atos & DWP when people are having “Home Assessments” carried out?

It appears that Atos HCPs are demanding a “Chaperone” when performing a “Home Assessment“, What, do they think they’ll be attacked”? This is bloody outrageous as far as I’m concerned, it also raises the question of other people being able to see and hear your private details, personal, maybe traumatic personal medical problems, this has to be looked into?

The other thing that I’ve learnt is that the Atos HCP doesn’t use a laptop, so the LIMA system cannot be used at the time of assessment, the HCPs are just making written notes and then transferring them later on, this leaves the actual assessment open to all sorts of problems for the person being assessed, the Atos HCP could alter things later on, mind you the spoken word cannot be changed because it’s been recorded, Atos and the DWP will have to be very careful there.

You also have to sign a document stating you will NOT publish the recording to the Internet, I cannot see what they could do even If you did publish, that’s another matter though.

I’ve also been told that when a copy of the signed form is requested that request has been refused, why I wonder?

Atos and the DWP are also refusing request’s for a typed report of a copy of the HCP notes taken at the time of the actual assessment, this is also worrying but again this will have to be looked into further.

As I keep on telling people, it’s vital that everyone requests their assessment be Audio Recorded, be that at an assessment centre or A HOME ASSESSMENT, absolutely vital.

Hope this info proves useful…

Related articles
■Government trying to Sabotage the Audio Recording of Assessments – The government don’t want the truth to come out… http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... -come-out/
■Atos/DWP hiding report into pilot study of audio recording of WCA Assessments…
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... sessments/
■Tabled questions on Audio Recording of Atos Assessments by Tom Greatrex MP…
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... eatrex-mp/
■Letter to Head of PR Atos- Caroline Crouch…
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... ne-crouch/
■A Victory for Atos Victims, a small victory, but a victory nontheless…
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... ontheless/
■Ex-Atos HCP exposes WCA’s bias against the sick
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... 3/28/5258/
■FOI Request Reply – Appeals process
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... s-process/
■Atos is “black and white” on fitness and disability
http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... isability/

read more - http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... llduggery/

When the Royal Mail paid Atos to assess postman Garry Hollingworth they said he should be medically retired. But just weeks later, when they assessed again him for ESA, Atos gave him zero points and passed him fit for work.

"Professor Harrington is very clear that the current system is essentially not fit for purpose. If there was any justice everyone would be reassessed.

Tough tests for sickness benefit are "all about saving lives not saving money", claims Employment Minister Chris Grayling.
He might try telling that to the family of one father who died after being told to get a job as his heart condition wasn't "life-threatening".

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation ... -atos.html

Quotage:

“Mike O’Donnell called for a new way of looking at health. He pointed out that many of the risk factors for back pain and work stress were similar, and could be said to be part of everyday life. Denying people the opportunity to stretch themselves by avoiding any stress could be harmful - overcoming obstacles gives us a sense of achievement, and should be seen as a natural and positive part of life. He expressed concern that undue concentration on work as a health hazard may implant harmful beliefs and lead to unhelpful behaviours.”

The intention seems to be to pull ‘back pain’ away from being a concept that connects it to a physical (and therefore in most people’s eyes legitimate) source to situate it alongside ‘work stress’, which has closer connotations to an emotional/mental imbalance. The concept of stress itself receives a reconfiguring, transforming it into a positive factor, ‘positivising’ it so that the encountering of it becomes now an ‘opportunity’ to ‘overcome obstacles’ and therefore experience the thrill of achievement. The last sentence is sinister to my mind – ‘undue’, ‘harmful’ and ‘unhelpful’ applied to the notion that work can be a ‘health hazard’, which quite evidently it can. Heavy ideological stuff going on there.

Theories: Well I already quoted Mr O’Donnell suggesting that when people are suffering from stress their GPs should (correct me if I’m wrong) not validate this or offer understanding, but rather put the responsibility for dealing with this square on the shoulders of the patient. Interesting idea that an already stressed out person should have inner resources to draw upon for this but, hey, I’m not an expert like Mr O’Donnell.

So what is his expertise? Dunno! (As that rather fabulous ‘social entrepreneur‘, ‘Dr’ Emma Harrison CBE of A4e fame would say. D’you think I’m a sort of genius or something?! As she did in fact say at this exact point in the ‘Benefit Busters’ series.

This is my first find. It’s from 2005, produced by the Health & Safety Executive from a ‘Review of Health Models‘ Workshop. O’Donnell was halfway through his stint as CMO at UnimProvident at the time. There’s another couple of interesting names on the delegates list: Gordon Waddell, from Cardiff Uni‘s (formerly Unum) Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research, headed by Mansel Aylward. Aylward and Waddell collaborated on a government publication: “The scientific and conceptual basis of incapacity benefits” in 2005 (While the department was in the early stages of funding by Unum.) and a previous book in 2002, “Back Pain, Incapacity for Work and Social Security Benefits: An International Literature Review and Analysis.” And secondly, the now almost notorious Mr Simon Wessely (Google him and ME/CFS and prepare to be appalled).

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_i ... 3844881309

by TiddK, Devon
Saturday, February 26 2011, 8:57PM
.“"Arbeit Macht Frei"

The disabled are the "new Jews". The parallels are uncanny :

- government-inspired propaganda designed to stir up popular feeling against the disabled (by not coming out and denying the poison spat out by the Daily Mail, the government are actively condoning this hate crime).

- "Work makes you fulfilled, and gives you self-respect" (Government spin). What was the motto over the gates at Auschwitz? "Work makes you free"

- New arrivals at Auschwitz were "assessed as to their fitness for work" and placed into the appropriate group depending on this assessment.

- the assessment was carried out on largely visual evidence, and was totally inexpert, much like most ATOS assessments, carried out by non-medical personnel

- the "real reason" was concealed (genocide in the case of the Holocaust; money-saving at the expense of the weakest members of society in the modern case).

This might sound like an outrageous parallel, but the more you look at it, the more you think about it, the more it seems uncannily real.

"Arbeit Macht Frei". The scroungers (the fewer than 1% of DLA claimants for example) are not the real targets. It's the weak, the sick, the disabled. We will NOT be looked after by the turncoat Cameron, he who was the parent of a severely disabled child, he who promised to look after the disabled community. He presides over an administration that funds an external agency ATOS, to meet targets and reduce the welfare bill. The collateral damage to the genuinely disabled, is no concern to them.

For now, it seems we are doomed. But truth will out. And in the end (though it will be too late for some us - people are already dying, killed by this policy) justice will be done.

"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"”

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/10000-FACE ... story.html

Britain pledges additional £10bn towards IMF war chest
Now, hang on just one minute there ... George told us in the Budget, we were in SO much trouble he was just gonna have to cut another £10 billion off Welfare. That is on top of the £18 billion that has already been cut from the welfare budget. There is nothing left to cut for the unemployed, under-employed,sick and disabled. They have already quietly been decimated while no one bothered to pay attention. Even the terminally ill, have been found fit for work. Figures for last year show an average of 32 people a week died after being told they were "not sick enough" to qualify for the Support Group. Over 100 have committed suicide. The public have been drip fed lies and misinformation to incite hatred of "welfare". Without being told that the vast bulk of the welfare budget is PENSIONS. So when George comes looking for his extra £10 billion of cuts, he can only find it in the pension bill. The "granny tax" was just the start. The poor, the sick, the elderly are just fodder to "pacify the markets".

The Problem of ‘Scientifically Unfounded Attitudes’: A BioPsychoSocial Analysis

A small, but select, number of individuals in our society can be seen to be suffering from the mysterious problem of “Scientifically Unfounded Attitudes“. This is a significant issue for society as a whole since those afflicted tend to hold high status, influential positions in the academic, state and corporate medical community, and have been complicit in cobbling together a rag bag of ideas (under the guise of a theory) which has had profoundly negative effects on many people’s lives, economically, socially and personally. This is also true of its effects on taxpayers money, a great deal of which has been wasted on spurious processes whose only objective, it seems, is to channel vast amounts of money into the pockets of private companies.

So how has this situation arisen? A biopsychosocial model is very helpful in the analysis of these individuals:
First it is necessary to address the ‘bio-medical’ element (in order to get it out of the way, which is the usual concern of these adherents). Exhaustive medical data is not available for this group, but considering their fairly advanced average age, and the fact that they are still furiously active, and able to travel extensively around the world touting their ‘theories’ suggests that they belong to a privileged sector of the health spectrum. That is, they are those in whom illness is relatively absent. This is confirmed visibly by the absence of any ‘aids’ in their conduct of work. It can be reasonably assumed, then, that they have been in the main favoured with good health.

Further, and here we introduce a social aspect into the analysis, a singular feature which connects all these individuals is their tenancy of high profile positions within state, academic or corporate agencies. Occupying, as they do, the top strata of the employment scale, which attracts to it a slew of benefits extra to the significantly high salaries these positions command, they are comfortably placed should they ever find the spectre of ill-health casting a shadow across their lives. This ‘social’ lens, then helps to explain how their distorted perspective on illness may have been reinforced by their privileged social location. The protection of affluence provides an impenetrable buffer against physical or mental affliction.

And it is the second of these, the mental, which perhaps offers the greatest insight into the behaviour and attitudes of this group. The psychological element of this model is able to highlight the source of shared distortions in beliefs that manifest within this sector of the population. Significantly this group place an excessive value upon psychological explanations of illness. Perhaps this is an instinctive acknowledgement of the fact that they, themselves, suffer from psychologically deluded ideas about the sources of illness (for reasons not unconnected to their own bio and social circumstances). Many of them, some explicitly, some tacitly, derive their understanding of illness from what is termed ‘positive’ psychology (or the rather more respectable ‘cognitive behavioural’ theory). The ideas underpinning this minority field of the discipline is that it is not the circumstances of people’s lives which determine the outcomes for them but their ‘attitude of mind‘. More rational people consider this ‘wishful thinking’, or when applied to the dire circumstances of some people’s lives by an outside agent, abuse. Other psychological dysfunctions are also visible among this group, particularly that of the persecution complex which is evidenced in ‘knee-jerk’ responses to any legitimate criticism that those actually suffering from illness have the temerity to raise.

This has been a brief analysis of this afflicted group, but it has also been a demonstration of just how widely it is possible to apply the BPS model. I believe it has been put to a far more realistic use here than it has by the group in question, who stretch one or two ideas to breaking point in their attempt to legitimise their theories, with their notably unbalanced emphasis on the (out-dated) psychological at the expense of those accompanying elements of the model. Interestingly this analysis too has found more significance of the ‘psycho‘ aspect in revealing underlying attitudes and distorted beliefs surrounding an issue. Perhaps that ultimately is this model’s failing, in that under the aegis of a purported ‘scientific’ paradigm it is able to provide a platform for the legitimisation of any, or all, biased attitudes.

Hopefully this small exercise will have enlightened people as to the uses to which the BPS model can be put. Anyone who wishes to give an apparent scientific gloss to their biased propositions need only to remember to quickly dispense with the ‘bio’ and the ‘social’ and focus excessively on the ‘psycho’ where, given its controversial history, psychology is certain to furnish them with something with which to underpin their claims.

http://downwithallthat.wordpress.com/ca ... -odonnell/

Corporate watch estimates that one organization taking on workfare ‘workers’ has made almost 1.5 million in unpaid wages through workfare schemes in just eight weeks. A worker for the organisation who wanted to remain anonymous said the organization

‘..likes to employ lots of people on 10-hour [a week] and other part-time contracts,” she said, “because this makes for a ‘flexible’ work-force … and they don’t have to shell out for as much paid holiday. 1,000 placements of 30 hours a week for 8 weeks at a time equals 240,000 unpaid hours. 240,000 times by the £6.08 minimum wage is almost £1.5m. Multiply this figure by all the businesses taking part in the scheme and that’s millions of pounds not being paid to workers that they would have ordinarily earned’

Unions have argued that the schemes are driving down wages and increasing unemployment- this is simple economics-why employ someone when you can get them to work for free? And why keep paid employees when you can get new ones for free?

http://www.digitalvoice.eu/?p=172

Even now Grayling is still misrepresenting the opposition. He says cancelling the WCA will result in people getting benefits without assessment. What a disgraceful statement, people have always been assessed - what we want are proper medical assessments by doctors, not disability-denial factories using a computer test with silly, simplistic questions asked by a Latvian midwife who has to Google translations during the assessment!
Grayling should be brought to book for his part in this terror against the sick and disabled. It's shameful.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... aul-farmer

Mission
To defend, protect and fight for humanity with disability.
Motto: "Disabled People Fighting for Our Future ; Custodians of Our Past"

http://www.facebook.com/blacktriangle11 ... &filter=12

1. would like to state that when you are taken off disability and deemed fit for work,are you not by law asked to disclaim any medical history?like when you have been in prison don’t you have to inform your employer that you have been to jail? isnt with holding information a sac cable offence?would not the employer see you more as a liability case more than an asset to there company and a risk factor to them selves and to other employees? these doctors at actos should give there name in full then when an individual is injured or an accident to any-other member of the work force due to that employee due to there illness and incapability to work but being passed as fit for work by those at actos that those doctors should be made accountable by further action in a court of law,where upon negligence of being deemed fit for work would be inappropriate evaluation,and due to being passed fit for work that a hight percentage of injury was more than a probability having disclaimed to the employer to begin with that they in fact would be a liability to those that employ them?what will be the question then that is asked do you not wont a job by the job centre?as you tell every interview that you are unfit for work and you cant do this and you cant do that,but if you don’t disclaim this information then your be with holding information witch is a sac-able offence and if you are injured or injure someone else and you haven’t told them about your disabilities then you would not be able to claim for injuries sustained.

Comment by carllancett — January 1, 2012 @ 4:40 pm

http://dwpexamination.wordpress.com/201 ... in-review/

Here is the reply of the Commissioner for Human Rights :

17 Mar 2010

The information you have provided has been added to our files, which we
update regularly in the framework of our ongoing country monitoring.
You may also wish to consider whether the issues you raise can be
addressed through the mechanism of the European Social Charter, to which
Greece is a Party.
You will find information on the European Social Charter on
http://www.coe.int/T/DGHL/Monitoring/SocialCharter/ and details
regarding the Charter's collective complaints mechanism on
http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/so ... nsEntitled
/OrganisationsIndex_en.asp

Sincerely,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Adviser/Conseiller
Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights
Bureau du Commissaire aux droits de l'homme
Council of Europe / Conseil de l'Europe
F - 67075 Strasbourg Cedex
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner

Follows our new collective complaint that we sent today :

TO THE COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND TO THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

NOTIFICATION TO THE PRESIDENT OF E.C.B. MR. JEAN-CLAUDE TRICHET AND TO THE DIRECTOR OF I.M.F. MR. DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

PERSECUTION OF GREEK AND EUROPEAN SICK AND DISABLED PEOPLE BY E.U. AND I.M.F

COLLECTIVE COMPLAINT

Dear Commissioner for Human Rights and dear Secretary General of the Council of Europe , thanks for Your reply and for the useful information but in the meantime has took place a serious breach of the democracy in Greece and consequently in Europe .
More precisely on 6 May 2010 and on 7 May 2010 the Greek parliament approved the laws 3845 and 3847 that caused the complete loss of the sovereignty of the Greek State that has been consigned to the European Union and to the International Monetary Fund ( violation of the article 4 of ECHR ) .
http://www.parliament.gr/ergasies/nomod ... lawid=1436 http://www.parliament.gr/ergasies/nomod ... lawid=1437
On 7 May 2010 " the government submitted a last-minute amendment to the austerity bill, which gave Finance Minister Papaconstantinou the right to sign binding agreements with the EU and IMF without the deals first being submitted to the unicameral Parliament for “ approval " . http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14409
Invoking the pretest of the "Greek national interest " the Greek Constitution that speaks about popular sovereignty , right to vote , etc. was annulled without any direct consent of the people .
Mr. Joseph Stiglitz says " looking at the IMF as if it were pursuing the interests of the financial community provides a way of making sense of what might otherwise seem to be contradictory and intellectually incoherent behaviors http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/works/ ... sation.htm
The interests of the financial community can be considered Greek national interest ?
It seems that in the agreement between European Union , IMF and the Greek government approved in the Greek parliament on 6 May 2010 there are policies in the sector of the disability regarding the cut of the disability pensions that recall dark old time of the history .
In the page 43 of the agreement above mentioned ( http://www.parliament.gr/ergasies/nomos ... 50.qxp.pdf ) You can read , among the " economic reforms " provided , " the introduction of stricter conditions for the concession of the disability pensions and the periodic re-examination of those with disability pensions " .
In the meantime it is ready the new draft-law that reforms the Greek insurance system . http://troktiko.blogspot.com/2010/04/bl ... _7352.html
The article 8 of the new draft-law states " the pension rights due to disability .....may be self-appointed , at anytime controlled by submitting the disability pensioner to medical re-examination by the above mentioned medical commissions " .
The phrase " may be self-appointed , at anytime controlled by submitting the disability pensioner to medical re-examination by the above mentioned medical commissions"
means that at any moment each disability pensioner , who may - in good faith to believe - that his pension is definitive , is called without any justification to pass again by medical re-examination with criteria more restrictive with the final result perhaps the reduction or even the loss of acquired pension rights " ( article 1 of the PROTOCOL No. 1 of ECHR ) .
In this way the disability pension rights of all the Greek disabled people will be founded on a continuous doubt with consequent violation of the legal principle of certainty of the right .
The existence by itself of this disposition constitutes an offense to the individual and collective dignity of the Greek disability people by the same Greek State ( article 3 of ECHR ) .
It implies that the all the Greek disability pensioners will be considered as fictitious that will be called at any time to prove their disability .
According to the fundamental principles of the constitutional law any power of the public administration should be defined in a very precise way so that it does not leave margins for discriminatory acts ( article 26 of ICCPR ) , phenomena of corruption and abuse of power while the above mentioned article 8 does not contains any of these elements but only general terms .
This disposition can have as final aim the indiscriminate cut of the disability pensions in accordance to preestablished calculations of the Ministry of Finance , the institutions of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund , in order to find resources to pay off loans to the banks ( article 2 ECHR ) .
If the aim is to fight the corruption , would be sufficient the realization of crossed controls in order to ascertain situations incompatible with the degree and the type of the disability WITHOUT THE NECESSITY OF NEW DISPOSITIONS .
The Greek associations of disabled people say that the Greek disabled have nothing to fear if they have nothing to hide .
If it is true , how can be explained situations that remind old dark times that took place , here in Greece , in cases of massive medical re-examinations of Greek disabled people ?
1) http://www.disabled.gr/lib/?p=9120
2) http://archive.enet.gr/online/ss3?q=%C2 ... d=82917804
3) http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.epi-isois-orois&id=162824

What Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn want to obtain with the " periodic re-examination of those with disability pensions " ?
Are they trying to create an atmosphere of terror and persecution against the Greek disabled people ?
This provision can be very dangerous in practice because could lead to cut of the pension of the Greek disable who will seek for legal solution with procedures that could take a lot of years and in the meantime he may lose all his property .
In many cases the right to the disability pension is connected with the right to health care and therefore the cut of the pension will determine the cut of the right to health care ( article 2 and 3 of ECHR ) .
It is surprising that none Greek organization for persons with disabilities does not give enough attention to the risks of the above mentioned article 8 , nor expressed any negative opinion .
Here in Greece there is another great problem in the case of the cut of the disability pension because is missing a true right to act in judgment .
According to the jurisprudence of the Greek Council of State " the medical issues belong to the competence of the medical commissions which opinion is binding for the insurance institutions and for the Administrative Court which if it judges the opinion of the medical commission vague, incomplete or in general defective should annul the contested opinion in order that the decision again become pending before the competent medical commission for new legal opinion "
( Council of State 5398/1987 ) . http://www.fa3.gr/eidiki_agogi/nomologia.htm
According to the above mentioned jurisprudence the Greek administrative courts can not order any restitution of the pension to the Greek disable and any reparation of the damage received but they can adjudicate only that the Greek disable must re-pass by medical re-examination .
Where is the rights to an effective remedy before a national authority of the Greek disabled ? (article 13 of ECHR )
Where is the " independent and impartial tribunal " considering that the Greek administrative courts are part of the Greek public administration ? ( article 6 of ECHR )
It is known that in Greece a process against the Greek public administration lasts in average 6-7 years .
Is it a reasonable time ? ( article 6 of ECHR )
Also for this reason the periodic medical re-examination of the Greek disable with definitive pension can not be introduced in the Greek legislation because could lead to dangerous experiments for him ( article 2 and 3 of ECHR ) .
Why Mr. Vardakastanis , president of the Greek Confederation of People with Disabilities , that stated to have carefully study the new bill for the insurance system did not found anything to comment about the article 8 ?
Is the role of Mr. Vardakastanis the protection of the interests of the Greek disabled people or simply to confirm the orders of Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn ?
http://www.esaea.gr/index.php?module=an ... &ns_news=1
http://www.esaea.gr/files/documents/Asf ... y_2010.doc
Always in the new bill for the insurance system , the article 6 paragraph 6 states " With common decision of Ministers of Health and Social Solidarity and Work and Social Insurance will be established the Register of the persons with disabilities " . http://troktiko.blogspot.com/2010/04/bl ... _7352.html
In this case is provided that the limitation of the fundamental right to privacy of the Greek disable will be completely regulated by simple ministerial decrees with consequent obvious violation of the democratic principle of the reserve of law and therefore of the article 8 of ECHR that states " There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law " .
Moreover the collection of the delicate personal data must be possible only with the consent of the Greek disable (article 8 of ECHR ) .
You Mr. Commissioner have stated that members of minorities " are victims of “ethnic profiling”, a form of discrimination which is widespread in today’s Europe " .
http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/Viewp ... 720_en.asp
The establishment of the Register of the persons with disabilities in Greece is not a form of profiling and discrimination due to the disability ? ( article 26 of ICCPR )
Some Greek associations of disabled people express their fear that the establishment of the Register of the persons with disabilities will determine the medical
re-examination of all the Greek disabled people . Consequently in this case we will have the same violations that are present in the above mentioned article 8 of the new draft-law that reforms the Greek insurance system .
The same problem of the violation of the principle about the reserve of law is also present in the article 7 of new bill for the insurance system that delegate to the ministers important regulations in the sector of disability . The sector of disability must be completely regulated with law when regards the right to life ( article 2 ECHR ) and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of the possessions ( article 1 protocol 1 of ECHR ) of the disable .
Instead clever minds have thought to adopt dangerous measures for the right to life of the Greek disabled with summary procedures without the control of the Greek Parliament and without any regard for the human rights .
What means " periodic re-examination of those with disability pensions " as imposed by Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn ?
It means that the number of the disabled people must become even less and less till the extinction of the disabled .
It is sufficient to see the situation of terror that are living the Italian disabled people .
In Italy is already in effect a disposition similar to the above mentioned article 8 and this is the article 20 paragraph 2 of the law 3 August 2009 n. 150 entitled " contrast to the fraud in matter of civil disability " that states " The INPS ( National Institute for Social Providence ) also assesses the permanence of sanitary requirement in relation to the holders of civil disability , civil blindness, civil deafness, handicap and disability " . http://www.handylex.org/gun/decreto_ant ... inps.shtml
We can see that also this article is founded on the principle that all the civil disabled are impostors that will be called at any time to prove their disability .
The old principles of the Inquisition have become the " new European democratic principles " ?
Also in Italy the government and the media implement the dark propaganda of the
" false disabled " and abuse of the popular credulity in order to put the citizens against the poor disabled people and to justify the cut of the disability pensions .
For example the Italian newspaper REPUBBLICA of 23 February 2010 stated that Italy is " the homeland of the false disabled " .
http://www.superabile.it/web/it/SUPERAB ... 46189.html
http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 47027.html
We have already hear this slogan also in Greece . http://www.adesmeytos.gr/news.php?aid=6627
It seems that in Italy will be suspected for " false disability " and therefore subject to medical re-examination the young disabled persons !
The chairman of the Italian National Institute for Social Security ( INPS ) Antonio Mastrapasqua and the Minister of the Public Function Renato Brunetta stated that in Italy the number of the disabled people that perceives disability allowances is 2.741.000 .
It is a practice of the Italian government to fool the citizens making them to believe that the number of the disabled that perceive disability subsidies is equal to the total number of the disabled . http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 94619.html
Of course it is not true ! . According to the data of the Italian national statistic institute ( ISTAT ) the number of the Italian disabled people who perceive disability subsidies was in 2006 only 966.225 against 2.600.000 , thus the ratio is 1/3 and not 1/1 as they like propagandize for obvious reasons .
http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 31159.html
The article of the newspaper REPUBBLICA stated also that in the Italian region of Trentino – that haw a population of 1.000.000 - in the year 2009 was granted only ONE new disability pension !
Someone affirms that " 6.6% of the Italian population are disabled, one of the lowest figures in the European Union " and it seems that now the percentage is 5% “.
http://www.realising-potential.org/stak ... worldwide/ http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 95078.html
" Italy for the civil disability spends less than Poland, Hungary, France and Germany and many others. Less than Italy spend only Greece, Estonia, Bulgaria and Ireland. " http://www.superando.it/content/view/5985/112/
Also the Italian minister of the economy Tremonti states that the cost of the disability pensions is incresed to 16 billion of euros . http://www.superando.it/content/view/5994/112/
But if the disability pensions in Italy are about 1 million and have a cost that varies between 250-730 euros/each , how it is possible to arrive to the sum of 16 billion of euros ?
We are noticing the same disinformation also in Greece where the media diffuse statistical data in the sector of the disability without indicate the source .
The minister Tremonti affirmed that " this is a Country that has 2.700.000 disabled and 2,7 million of disabled people consist an issue if a Country thus can be still competitive ” .
It means that in the name of the " god of the competitiveness " is necessary to eliminate the Italian and the European disabled people therefore returning in the dark policies of the past ? It was easy to find 9 billions of euros for the banks but not even 1 billion for the disabled . Perhaps the Minister has confused some voices in the balance concerning the money given to the banks with that given for the disability ?
Therefore in Italy and in Greece the true problem is the missing respect of the disability .
The Italian government uses to implement barbarous massive medical re-examination of 200.000 disabled people with irreversible infirmities per year ( article 3 of ECHR ) with consequent cut of the 15% of them in accordance to preestablished calculations . http://www.superando.it/content/view/5861/111/
In Italy the President of INPS stated that have been re-examinated cases of " terminally patients , absolute disabled , even people in coma " (article 3 of ECHR ) http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 53503.html http://www.superando.it/content/view/4850/112/
http://www.superabile.it/web/it/REGIONI ... 57044.html
Always in Italy there are stories of disabled people recalled for medical re-examination by unsigned letters , stories of thousands of people with serious disabilities that have seen suspend their meager pension of 250 euros per month and are now forced to make resort (article 2 and 3 of ECHR ) . http://www.superando.it/content/view/5349/112/
http://www.superando.it/content/view/4694/112/
In Italy make a resort is much more easy than in Greece because it take place before an ordinary judge and with the due reparation .
Regarding the cases of the unsigned letters sent from the Insurance Funds , we have already seen these stories in Sweden .
http://www.gt.se/nyheter/1.1817537/kenn ... -under-hot
Is this the picture of the Democratic Europe of the Human Rights or the picture of the Disastrous ? Europe that squanders several tens of millions of euro in order to mistreat the disabled and to cut their pensions ? Is this the Europe of Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn that are transforming the crisis of the banks in a social crisis ?
What was our dream ? The Europe of the bankers or the Europe of the true Human Rights ? It seems that in time of crisis there is a lot of money , energy and will but only to mistreat the European disabled people with costly massive medical re-examinations . Mr. Trichet had to proceed to the bankruptcy reorganization of the banks and not that of the Human Rights !
We ask for the Italian disabled people with irreversible disability ( paraplegia , tetraplegia , blindness , terminally patients , etc ) a law that blocks any further inhuman medical re-examination ( article 3 of ECHR ) and the necessity of a dignified pension that will assure their right to life (article 2 of ECHR ) .
Can be considered enough for their right to life the sum of only 250 euros per month ?
The Italian government wants also to raise the minimum rate of disability from 74% to 85% in order to obtain the meager pension of 250 euros .
http://www.superabile.it/web/it/CANALI_ ... 15817.html
This measure must not pass because is very dangerous for the right to life of the italian disable ( article 2 of ECHR ) .
We have bring to Your attention in a precedent collective complaint in 2008 the existence in Italy of the investigative agency ALDO PIRRI (Viale Somalia, 289 to 00199 Rome) that has even the toll-free number 800-253907 which can call anyone who has doubts about the real disability of a person or an employee. http://www.aldopirri.com/falsi-invalidi/truffe.htm
The agency says that have also “ technologically advanced equipments “ . http://www.aldopirri.com/aldopirriinvestigazioni.htm
Consequently, even behind an anonymous phone call of ignorant persons , any disable can suffer interferences in his private life ( article 8 of ECHR ) .
Perhaps it is necessary to pose an end to this shameful situation ?
In order to comprehend what want Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn from Greece with the phrase " introduction of stricter conditions for the concession of the disability pensions " it is necessary to consider the barbarous policy implemented in Britain and in Sweden against the disabled people .
In these Countries the disabled people are considered as fit to work and therefore the disable is treated like an unemployed person (article 26 of ICCPR ) .
The Greek government wants to apply these obscure theories also to the Greek disabled people . http://www.ypakp.gr/uploads/docs/3675.pdf
In Britain are considered as “ fit to work “ :
1) persons with brain tumor; http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... its-cut.do
2) persons amputee ; http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Articl ... 3?UserKey=
3) people in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis, people with severe mental illness, and some who are dealing with acute short-term health problems, such as awaiting open heart surgery.. ; http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_20100323
4) people with depression , anxiety , schizophrenia , panic attacks , sleeping disorder ; http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/183981.php http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/heal ... -1.1002753
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8580936.stm
A person " wrote of a friend who had her benefit cut off because she missed her assessment appointment, because she was in hospital bed having chemotherapy for stomach cancer " . http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepu ... it-to-work
A woman affirms " It was not long before October 2008 that my partner was assessed as fit for work despite being in constant, unendurable pain from cancer. The paperwork confirming his "fitness" arrived soon after but by then he was on a ventilator and he died a few days later " . http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepu ... ty-benefit
" An engineer in his 50s who had recently undergone a triple bypass for heart disease and was being treated for incurable stomach and liver cancer, who was deemed fit for work. During his assessment he said that he walked daily (as part of his convalescence regime) and that he was able to raise his hands above his head; as a result he was registered ready to start looking for work. " http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepu ... ty-benefit
Are really excellent these new evaluation systems derivatives of the System ICF in order to save the banks and to eliminate sick and disabled persons !
We can see the same optic of the " introduction of the sick and of the disable in the labor market " in Sweden :

1) http://gt.expressen.se/nyheter/1.191096 ... cancersjuk
2) http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=2 ... uff_118851
3) http://svt.se/2.123623/1.1824209/miste_ ... pos=lasmer http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article6418575.ab
http://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/debatt ... 6483236.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/article6438782.ab
4) http://www.metro.se/2009/11/12/7108/can ... ba-heltid/
5) http://www.lerumstidning.se/nyhet_visa. ... mn=NYHETER
6) http://svenssonliv.blogspot.com/2010/04 ... ar-en.html
7) http://www.bt.se/nyheter/mark/det-ar-en ... 493801).gm
8) http://blogg.vk.se/myh/2010/04/18/moder ... ack-167064
9) http://www.expressen.se/ekonomi/1.18205 ... -frisk-dog
10) http://hd.se/skane/2010/05/22/skadade-soldater-nekades/

It seems that someone indicates the way for the disabled and the sick persons with the cut of the benefits :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/ ... witzerland
Some people affirm that Europe is becoming a concentration camp for sick and disabled people . http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 33157.html
Mr. Adolf , if he was still alive , would be very pleasant of that !
We ask for Britain and Sweden the restore of unconditional benefits for sick and disabled people with irreversible infirmities .
We have already spoken about the problem of the new evaluation systems derivatives of the System ICF that are in contrast with medical ethics .
Now it is possible to see this contrast .
Someone states :

1) " Good to see medics here coming out in support. The BMA and GMC should condemn this system. The BMA should expel members working for it and the GMC should suspend their registration. That would put a stop to it. How on earth can working in this system be compatible with medical ethics? "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepu ... ty-benefit
2) " i am medical professional working for ATOS.i probably am going to get fired tommorrow for coming on this forum, but i dont care.i have been doing these "assessments" for sometime now.Its rubbish,draconian to say the least and it is designed to get people off the sick benefit.its is designed so that 75% of the people who apply for ESA, come hell or high water, "fail" it.Let the govt have the guts to deny this.
I have been battling with my conscience for the last few months while doing these medicals and have on a few occasions been, for want of a better word,distressed.
I had no idea what i was walking in to when i took up this job, but boy, am i regretting it big time!
This is a blatant ploy by the govt, for what, we all know,( so i am not stating the obvious), and nothing else.
I wish other professionals would take cue and speak out against the system, but i guess they are too scared to come out and speak. "

Is the medical re-examination with stricter condition of the Greek disabled people a way to hide crimes against the humanity ?
When the cut of the disabled and sick subsidies and pensions is implemented with the pretest of the medical re-examination with stricter conditions , we do not have in this case a crime against the humanity ?
We hear also that with the new evaluation system ICF it is necessary to came out from the medical optic . But coming out from the medical optic means a lot of violations of the medical ethics : this is an incompatible situation !
The experiment of the introduction of the disable in the labor market has already been seen in Korea where " the budget for the people with disabilities was 0.1 percent compared to the total gross domestic product (GDP) " and " despite the measure to boost the employment of the disabled, the hiring rate for private firms and the government was only 1.7 percent as of 2008 " . http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/bi ... 64487.html
If someone continues with this disastrous experiment then only in bad faith should be .
" A pandemic cannot be whatever the WHO declares it is. If it turns out that former PACE member Wolfgang Wodarg was right when he said the pandemic was decided to help the pharmaceutical industry make bigger profits, this might well turn out to be one of the biggest health scandals ever,” said Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC), PACE rapporteur on this issue. " http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/NewsManager ... D=5415&L=2
The evaluation system ICF has been developed by the WHO . Why the WHO was not credible for the pandemic of the swine flu but has to be credible for the ICF system ?
The ICF system can be developed to help interests of international financiers who are now destroying the Social State ?
Why the World Bank promotes the ICF system and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ?
Is the World Bank a charity institute for disabled people ?
Is just a case that the raise of the minimum rate to obtain the meager pension of 250 euros from 74% to 85% by the Italian government has been preceded by a meeting in Rome entitled " What is and how to evaluate the disability ? " where among others there were also representatives of the World Bank ? http://www.superando.it/content/view/5793/112/
International organisms that represent monetary interests cannot protect human rights . They intervene only to limit the Human Rights .
We are noticing that Countries are criticized for the use of death penalty .
https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=PR3 ... ged=A9BACE
https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1622 ... ged=A9BACE

What is the difference between the death of a guilty for murder caused by the execution of a death sentence of a judicial court and the death of an innocent undefended and weak disabled or sick person caused by the execution of a decision of a medical commission ?
The first case seems to many people much more legitimate than the second .
How many innocent sick and disabled persons die every day in Europe because they do not have the due funds that instead are destined to the banks ?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... W9Pg&pos=3
When will be applied with the due urgency a moratorium against the persecution of sick and disabled people in Europe ?
Can the Europe of European Monetary Fund give the example to other Countries in the sector of Democracy and of Human Rights ?
We think that You have comprised from the examples above mentioned what means " the introduction of stricter conditions for the concession of the disability pensions and the periodic re-examination of those with disability pensions " .
It seems that the Greek government and the Greek parliament have sold out the right to life of the Greek sick and disabled to the bankers of Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn . It reminds us the prophetic novel of the Merchant of Venice of Shakespeare .
Considering the gravity of the situation above mentioned , we ask You the implementation of the necessary pressure in order to :

1) abrogate the reform " introduction of stricter conditions for the concession of the disability pensions and the periodic re-examination of those with disability pensions " that provides the agreement between Greece , European Union and IMF ( laws 3845 and 3847 of 2010 ) because is inhuman ( article 3 of ECHR ) , hits the right to life of the Greek disabled people ( article 2 of ECHR ) and helds in slavery the Greek disable ( article 4 of ECHR ) .
However such agreement helds in slavery the entire Greek people because causes the complete loss of the sovereignty especially in delicate social sectors ( article 4 of ECHR ) .How is possible to collimate the rules of the IMF with the Human Rights ?

2) prevent the introduction and the implementation of any disposition providing the medical re-examination of Greek disabled people with irreversible diseases ( amputees , quadriplegics , blinds , persons with psychical disorders , terminally patients , etc. ) especially for those that are no longer subject to medical examination and have definitive pensions and subsidies and generally have an acquired right ( articles 2 , 3 and 1 of the PROTOCOL No. 1 of the ECHR ). The medical re-examinations in the above mentioned cases are only a pretest , as we have already seen in other European States , for drastic and inhuman cuts ;

3) prevent the introduction of any disposition providing the unification of the evaluation criteria of the disability that introduces stricter conditions for the concession of the disability pensions , subsidies and various supplies for the Greek disable ( article 2 and 3 of ECHR ) ;

4) prevent the application of the ICF evaluation system with regard to the future cases of disability in Greece because it is based on a definition of disability correlated with barriers of various kinds. The Greek environment is full of barriers and the Greek State has never take the appropriate measures at the right level to eliminate them but contrary has created new barriers .
However someone could declare that in Greece have been eliminated all the barriers , while in concrete they are always present and then use the system ICF to the only purpose of drastic cuts in the subsidies of disability , equating the disabled to the normal citizen and therefore creating real inhuman discriminations ( article 26 of ICCPR ) . The ICF evaluation system is a new system and could be badly interpreted or badly comprised , either casually or intentionally ,in order to obtain the above mentioned cuts in the field of the disability. Apply the ICF system evaluation in Greece would mean to send the disable on the streets to beg signing his conviction to death.
We are clearly contrary not only to the application of the evaluation system ICF but also to the application of stricter criteria of evaluation of disability dangerous for the right to life of the Greek disabled (art. 2 of ECHR and art. 6 of ICCPR ) . We do not want to live the catastrophic experiment that we have seen in other States of Europe !

5) prevent any violation of the democratic principle of the reserve of law in the sector of disability . The establishment of the Register of the persons with disabilities in Greece must be completely regulated with a law for the reasons above mentioned ( article 8 of ECHR ) . The collection of the delicate personal data must be possible only with the consent of the Greek disable ( article 8 of ECHR and 26 of ICCPR ) . The sector of disability must be completely regulated with a law when regards the right to life ( article 2 ECHR ) and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of the possessions ( article 1 protocol 1 of ECHR ) of the disable . The violation of the democratic principle of the reserve of law is a malpractice diffused in Greece ;

6) prevent the emanation of regulations and measures that annuls and diminishes pensions , subsidies and any kind of facilities of disability , which remove tax exemptions to the disabled , imposes new taxes and however affecting by any means and way the acquired rights of the disabled people even under the form of the introduction of income requirements - no tax exemptions for disabled people must be removed as provided by the article 6 of the law 2238 of 1994 and by the article 2 paragraph 1 of the law 3522 of 2006 ;

7) assure to the Greek disable an effective remedy , economically affordable , before a national independent and impartial tribunal within a reasonable time and with the due reparation for questions that regard the decisions of the medical commissions . The Administrative Courts are an undemocratic residue of the past and lack of independence ( article 6 and 13 of ECHR ) . The Greek judges often ignore and tend to not apply the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights . As we have described in the past , the Greek judges have great problem of sensibility in the sector of the disability and their behavior can violate the right to life of the Greek disable ( article 2 of ECHR ).

8) Ensure the approval of a law that abrogates the article 4 paragraph 2 , 3 and 4- of the law 2430 of 1996 that tries to hit the acquired right of the Greek disabled people
( articles 2 , 3 and 1 of the PROTOCOL No. 1 of the ECHR ) . We have already spoken in previous complaints about this law ;

9) Ensure that for the rules that affect also disabled people are provided special provisions for them in order to not create discriminations ;

10) Ensure the complete exemption from the imprisonment of the Greek disable because fails to pay a debt to the public administration ;

11) Ensure the establishment of an independent Ombudsman for all the Greek disabled people , elected by the Parliament and not by the Government , with binding powers against the Public Administration concerning also the protection of social security and pension rights , situations of discriminations and of defamatory propaganda ;
The Greek Ombudsman with its purely consultative powers can not be of any concrete assistance to the Greek disable - this request was included in the complaint that we already sent You on 3 July 2009 but till now nothing has been done . The right of the Greek disabled people to an effective remedy before the Greek Courts continues to be impossible for the totality of them also for the high costs ;

12) Cease any discriminatory propaganda and any phenomena of abuse of popular credulity against the category of the disabled like for example that of the " false disabled" or that Greece has the highest percentage of disabled people in Europe and instead spread a positive mentality with regard the persons belonging to our category - the propaganda of the " false disabled " is necessary to the Greek government in order to implement cruel measures against the entire category of the Greek disabled people and continues to be used till now nevertheless the complaint that we sent You on 3 July 2009 - where is the opposition of the Greek associations of the disabled people and what is their role ? The Greek associations of disabled people not only support many times the propaganda of the " false disabled " but they do not even have a legal adviser in order to denounce for defamation media and rulers when use this dark propaganda and to protect the disabled when occur cuts to disability allowances and pensions . The continuous use of this propaganda demonstrates the low cultural level of the European media ;

13) make sensible and democratic the Greek associations of disabled people that still maintain an inert and non-transparent behavior towards the disabled despite the repeated declarations of the rulers to proceed to the reform of the disability pensions .Democracy means also possibility of dialogue but the Greek associations of disabled people want to decide about the disabled people without an effective dialogue with them - the various Greek associations of disabled people have great problems of independence because they are well financed from the public budget and from various programs of the EU - What is really their role ? To give the consent to many decisions of the Greek rulers and of the EU even if they are dangerous for the Greek disabled people ? To give the consent to new systems that may determine many risks for the Greek disabled people ? What is the role of Mr. Vardakastanis , president of the European Disability Forum , ( http://www.edf-feph.org/Page.asp?docid=12486&langue=EN ) , as protector of the greek and European disabled people ? From all the above mentioned cases , the conclusions are obvious ;

14) prevent the establishment of a single and Catholic Health Care System in Greece that reduces under any form and pretest the state involvement in health care costs to a minimum, degraded level for all . If all the services of the Greek health care system are already degraded , what will remain after any further degradation ?

15) restore the due health care provisions for the patients suffering from Mediterranean anemia ( page 30 of the newspaper AVGI of 13 May 2010 ) .(article 2 of ECHR )
http://www.avgi.gr/ServeFileActionsaveP ... 100513.pdf
Facts like the above demonstrates the real intentions of the Greek government , Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn .

Best regards

Athens 31 May 2010
For the Independent Greek Disabled Group

https://secure.gn.apc.org/members/www.b ... 17a031bb2c

Very early in the Nazi dictatorship, political and medical authorities began to divide their community between its “fit” and “unfit” members, between their “valuable” and “un-valuable” members.

And because so much of what it was to be “unfit” or “un-valuable” or “fit” and “valuable” rested on biomedical implications, the Nazis began relatively early during their regime to marshal a series of radical public health strategies to solve their difficulties with physically and mentally disabled persons in their communities, and also persons whom they construed to be hereditarily compromised by a variety of mental and physical afflictions.

On July 14, 1933, the Hitler cabinet promulgated the Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases, the so-called sterilization law, which ordered the compulsory sterilization of individuals with certain afflictions. There were nine diseases or afflictions outlined in the law. Five of these were neurological or psychiatric disorders: hereditary epilepsy, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (what was then termed manic-depressive disorder), hereditary “feeblemindedness” (what today we might construe as mental retardation or learning disabilities, a wide range of mental problems, actually this was a very elastic, ambiguous definition for diagnosing various kinds of mental illnesses and disabilities), and finally the very rare neurological disease Huntington’s chorea - read more http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/foc ... beginnings

http://victimsofatoscorruption.wordpres ... -disabled/

Europeans with disabilities are terrified

Updated 18 April 2012

The austerity measures taken in response to the European sovereign debt crisis have had a devastating impact on people with disabilities, leading to allowance cuts and a rise of unemployment rates that could generate greater economic and social exclusion, says John Evans from the European Disability Forum.

John Evans is a disability rights, equalities and diversity consultant, trainer and researcher in the UK. He is currently on the Board of Directors of both the European Network on Independent Living, and the European Disability Forum.

"We are currently living through unprecedented times. How things have changed since 2007. Then we were going through a new age with the UN convention for the protection and promotion of disabled people rights. It felt like we had an international legal instrument which recognised the rights of citizens.

It was a breath of fresh air - we had waited a long time to have such capacity, to realise our rights like nondisabled people. However, the Utopia was not to last, as the world was brought to the brink of an economic banking disaster. Four years later, we are now experiencing and paying the price for this.

Since the crisis began, the European Disability Forum and my organisation, the European Network of Independent Living, have been receiving many complaints and requests for support from members struggling to maintain their quality of life.

Disabled people 'terrified'

I can assure you, disabled people now are terrified of what is happening and what might happen next. No countries are exempt from these measures, even those who are leaders in services and legislation for disabled people. The UK was once the pioneer of independent living; now we find ourselves struggling to maintain what we built up over the last 30 years. In many countries, disability organisations have been uniting to protest and challenge the cuts made nationally.

In June 2011, the European Disability Forum established the EU Observatory of the crisis to monitor the effects of austerity measures on persons with disabilities and focus on what measures would be taken at the national level. Complaints of the situation have been received from Sweden, the Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Portugal, Ireland and Greece.

There are barriers which have increased dramatically. The average percentage of disabled people in the workforce is less than half compared to non disabled people. This leads to further poverty and social exclusion for many disabled people. Over 70% in some countries are on benefits. Unemployment plays a crucial role providing status and sense of community well-being.

In the UK 400,000 disabled people will lose out on work support. The worst consequences of the crisis are in welfare systems. When introducing new pension schemes, governments must be aware of the fact that the majority of disabled people already are living below the poverty threshold. Further reduction of the income will increase more hardship. Studies showed that poverty has increased by 50% in the disability community. It is important when trying to apply the poverty target in the 'Europe 2020' strategy.

In Belgium now, over 500,000 disabled people are still waiting for the personal assistant budget. In the Netherlands, 174,000 persons will lose their budgets. These will have devastating effects for supporting disabled people and participation in society. It seems governments are only looking at budgets and cross-cutting and not the impact the cuts will have on the quality of life and well being of disabled people.

In the UK and Spain the crisis had negative effects on the health conditions of disabled people, causing more anxiety disorders and stress. In the UK, two disabled people committed suicide. It is important in such times that we are able to have escape mechanisms to protect ourselves.

The EDF Observatory has analysed and found some concrete trends. The first is reassessment and touches on the media. A worrying development has emerged on the reassessment of disability status, a dangerous distortion of reality in order to recover millions of euros.

Unfortunately, this has been supported by the media that portray disabled people as scroungers, not wanting to work who cheat the system. The media in the UK have been blatant in this approach.

After years of fighting, we are now at the threat of returning to the medical model, with the restrictions and barriers. The development of these stereotypes is dangerous and increase social exclusion and risk of further poverty.

The second trend is allowances. Universal cuts have been made of benefits for disabled people. In nearly every EU member state it is a sad consequence when cuts are being made, disabled people are often easy targets.

Third is around increase taxation - national recovery plans that involve increased taxation. It aggravates the burden for disabled people and the families in order to maintain a reasonable standard of life. Fewer resources mean it is more difficult to participate economically, socially and politically.

The other trend is the reduction in budgets, as local authority budgets have been reduced across Europe -in the UK, for instance, a 25% cut will go on for the next 4 years. Frontline services and the support systems to disabled people are being reduced despite challenges from organisations of disabled.

Many NGOs are concerned that EU funding will be reduced like it has been in many countries. The combination of the EU legislative framework and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities could go a long way in helping to address the situation by highlighting member states the legal obligations. It is important that we work together, social NGOs, trying to come to support one another in this crisis.

Finally, it is true we need a strong legal framework in the EU that protects disabled people from discrimination. We need an apparatus enabling disabled people participating in social economic life. EDF calls upon the EU to raise awareness to ensure disabled people in the media, to avoid stigmatisation, inclusive of freedom of movement of disabled people, the right to live independently.

The right to work and employment must be protected. Measures for inclusion should include reasonable accommodation, education for disabled people to be respected, and access to health services. High standards in social services are a precondition for respecting disabled people’s lives and family life.

Furthermore, adequate living standards and social protection should be maintained to avoid poverty. Every step of the way organisations representative of disabled people should be consulted.

I call upon all EU institutions to join us and support us in addressing this problem and making sure it doesn’t get worse for disabled people who are out in the streets today. Don't forget the 80 million European with disabilities."

http://www.euractiv.com/socialeurope/eu ... sis-509471

UN told that UK is Breaching the Human Rights of Disabled People

On 2 April 2012 Dr Pauline Nolan, Policy Officer for Inclusion Scotland, submitted evidence that disabled people's human rights are being breached to a preliminary hearing ahead of a planned review of the human rights record of 14 states including the UK.

On behalf of the Campaign for A Fair Society – a coalition of more than 70 Scottish charities – Dr Nolan warned the cumulative impact of welfare reform and cuts to benefits affecting disabled people will mean their ability to live a full life is impaired, and that welfare changes undermine their right to be included in the community.

The campaign also claims disabled people are being denied access to justice when they try to appeal against these cuts to their benefits.

Dr Nolan said she aimed to equip the UN with a series of recommendations and questions to put to the UK Government when its representatives appear in front of the Human Rights Council in May.

She added: “Disability organisations, disabled people and the Parliament’s own Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that these cuts will have a devastating cumulative impact on the livelihoods of disabled people.

“Further cuts are taking place to local authority services they receive. Taken together, all these cuts are severely undermining the human rights of disabled people.”
She claims half of the £18 billion of cuts to be made under welfare reform will fall on households containing disabled people, adding: “These cuts will push hundreds of thousands of disabled people and their families into poverty and thousands will be made homeless.”

Jim Elder-Woodward, of the Independent Living in Scotland project, said: “I am really pleased that Dr Nolan is going to Geneva to tell the UN just how this Coalition Government is systematically undermining the rights of disabled people by cutting their benefits and services.

“The combined voices of disabled people have either been silenced or misrepresented by the UK Government in their resolution to make disabled people suffer over 50% of the total £18bn in benefit cuts.”

Norma Curran, of Values Into Action Scotland, added: “These welfare reforms are devastating people’s lives. It’s not acceptable to challenge the human rights of people on the grounds of race, sex, language, or religion, so why does the UK Government think that it is acceptable to breach the human rights of disabled people?”

Stephen Naysmith – Herald Scotland

http://www.beingtheboss.co.uk/news.htm

Tuesday, 1 May 2012Guest post: Disability benefits and the self-made mouth #badd2012
This is a guest post from @indigojo_uk that originally appeared here. It is reproduced here as part of Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012 as it's a write up about a disablist appearing on the radio decrying benefit claimants.

Last Saturday night, there was a debate on the Stephen Nolan show, a late-night phone-in on the BBC station Radio 5 Live, in which the former Apprentice contestant Katie Hopkins, who styles herself “the only candidate to say ‘no’ to Sir Alan” [Alan Sugar of Amstrad, who runs the TV series, The Apprentice], defended the government’s cuts to disability and housing benefits and Lisa “Lisybabe” Egan and one of the other callers tried to oppose her. Hopkins is clearly of the opinion that disability benefits are given out to an awful lot of people who aren’t really disabled or don’t deserve them, as shown by this tweet:

Katie Hopkins @KTHopkins If people's disability benefit was handed out from the top rung of a ladder I reckon most would climb the ladder to get it.
26 Apr 12

Her stance was that people need to rely on their own resources rather than the state as we live in “austere” times, a line that she trotted out again when Lisa reminded her that people had paid National Insurance and that the whole idea of an insurance scheme is that it pays out when things go wrong. As for housing benefit, she said she did not see why the state should pay for people to live in the south-east, without apparently realising that the majority of housing benefit recipients are actually in work. She also posted this rant about child benefits on her blog, claiming (without the slightest evidence, of course) that “for so many of our poorer families in this country the child does not benefit at all – but rather the overweight mother guzzling McDonalds with her large brown Primark bag bulging at her feet”. You can listen to the show here for the next week. (For non-British readers: a Primark bag does not signify affluence.)

The issue of housing benefit is not the main concern here, except to state that the majority of recipients are in fact in work, and much of it pays for the shortage of affordable housing stock, the political decision to sell off council houses, and the runaway house price inflation caused by the credit boom which ended in 2008. Disability benefits are a burden society has always had in one form or another, because there have always been people whose physical or mental condition, whether temporary or permanent, either does not allow them to work, or makes them a less attractive proposition to employers for one reason or another. There are two separate categories of disability benefit: the Disability Living Allowance, which covers the cost of being disabled (such as for care and mobility aids) and is paid regardless of whether the recipient is working — indeed, it may help them remain in work — and the former Incapacity Benefit, which supported people who were unable to work, whether due to illness or a complication of their disability. Many of those who currently receive DLA would previously have been institutionalised, a practice which ended because the public realised that there were rampant abuses, the care was often impersonal, taking no account of people’s needs and abilities, and there was little dignity or privacy in many of them, besides the fact that the vast majority of people do not need to be housed apart from their families and the community. They were paid for out of state expense as well, and the land they stood on is now in many cases prime real estate and the grand buildings have been demolished or converted into luxury flats, so a return to that is going to be extremely expensive as well as unsatisfactory for all concerned.

Hopkins introduced herself by saying that “as a taxpayer” it had become obvious to her that people could live where they choose, have as many children as they choose, and smoke if they choose and have the state pay for the consequences of that, and that benefits should be a privilege and that people should “look to themselves” rather than the state to provide for them. She also invited the others to come with her on “claimants’ day” to the benefit office to see people collecting their benefits in their pyjamas. (I was on Job Seekers’ Allowance for two years and I almost never saw people in the Job Centre in their pyjamas.) Lisa asked her if, in the event of her getting cancer or having an accident, she would try to use the national insurance contributions she had paid, and Hopkins replied no, that she had savings that would provide for her family in such circumstances, money she had made by “grafting” and getting up at 5:30am every morning to provide for her family. Further enquiries reveal that Hopkins has epilepsy, and if she expects everyone to rely on themselves rather than the state, she should explain whether she has used the NHS to provide either the medication or the care she needs such as consultations to decide which medications to take and so on, and hospitalisation in the event of a severe seizure. In any case, she is not the only one who gets up at that time or earlier, and the majority of us do not make a lot of money because our jobs do not pay us that much. Hopkins got lucky; she does not mention on her website that she invented anything or has actually run a business doing anything other than selling advice to other businesspeople and public speaking. She is, in other words, a professional mouth, someone with opinions who gets paid for them.

When Egan asked her if she really was so cruel as to insist that people with cancer not receive help from the state, she fell back on her claim that the benefit system was too generous. She claimed that the people she “accosts” in their pyjamas get “home allowance” of up to £400, job seekers’ allowance, disability allowance “although they’ve managed to walk very well to the job centre”, and that it makes it not worth your while to work part-time. In fact, having been on JSA, the last time I received it, it was about £65 per week, which is about a day and a half’s average pay and just enough to buy the bare essentials for a week with. The reason it is “not worth your while to work” is because the money is deducted from your allowance and the allowance is stopped if you have two days’ work that week, even if it is a one-off booking through an agency during a slump, so unless you get a permanent job or a prospect of a lot of casual work, accepting a work booking could well leave you worse off. This is simply a consequence of the version of means testing that is used for JSA, and it is one of a number of circumstances in which means testing is a proven disincentive to work.

Nobody really confronted Hopkins with why some benefits need to be paid, and disability benefits in particular. We either pay for people with disabilities to live at home, and for the necessary adaptations and home care arrangements, or we pay for them to live in a care facility, when the land is bought, and they’re built, and all the cooks, cleaners, nurses, managers and others are hired, at huge expense — there is no third option, unless you count leaving them to die or leaving them to beg on the streets. Some people with disabilities can work, and others can if they are provided with some assistance, or if people help them to find a niche they can cope with working in, or helps them through (or past) the interview process, and the benefits made to these people may be more than recouped in the taxes they pay because they are then able to work. Others cannot, either because they do not have the intellectual capacity, or because their physical limitations make it impractical, or because their health complications or mental health problems mean they will not be able to work reliably, or because prejudice or inconvenience means people will not hire them. Of course, some people with disabilities are very wealthy and can afford to pay for care themselves, and some can run their own business, but this is not the majority and the costs of being disabled or of having a long-term medical condition add considerably to the cost of living, which is why we have a health service and a welfare system.

Hopkins clearly does not know much about what she is talking about here, only that she doesn’t want to pay to finance anyone else’s lifestyle. She promotes herself as some sort of “self-made”, self-employed person who “tells it like it is” as a social commentator and public speaker (reinforcing her “tough” image by boasting that she went to the Sandhurst military officers’ academy), but on this evidence that seems to consist of making bigoted and ill-informed comments that might go down well with all the well-paid drunks at a corporate party but do not add much to this discussion. There is a lot of talk about scroungers in pyjamas claiming benefits that were enough to live on comfortably without working, yet no solution has been given as to how to get the idlers off benefits without impoverishing people who are in real need and are unable to work; the government did not come up with one and neither has she. Yet again, British talk radio allows a serious and important debate to descend into a slanging match by giving undue prominence to an opinionated but uninformed guest — at the expense of the licence fee payer!

http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.uk/ ... -self.html

The sick cost of cuts to benefits

The seriously ill will be losing out on vital funds this week as Welfare Reform Act changes kick in

More Con-Dem welfare reforms this week will affect the vulnerable

The Con-Dems are hammering those struggling with serious ill health as they bring in more welfare reforms this week.

Charities say 300,000 people will lose help they desperately need to survive and could be at risk of losing their homes as a crucial benefit is stopped after one year – even for those still deemed too ill to work.

The Welfare Reform Act, passed in March, has changed the law so that from April 30, claimants of the contributory Employment and Support Allowance will only receive this benefit for one year maximum.

This is meant to be a measure to get people who are milking the system off benefits and back to work.

Protection

But those affected by this change are not work-shy layabouts, living off state handouts because they can’t be bothered to get out of bed.

These are hard-working people who have paid their dues, many working for decades paying National Insurance, in the mistaken belief that this would protect them if they became too ill to work. We are talking about people with really serious conditions, cancer patients and those in wheelchairs.

Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: “We’re really concerned that the Government has gone ahead with limiting the length of time that people can get contribution based ESA, despite appeals for them to rethink or at least delay their plans.

“This change will see 300,000 people losing almost £100 a week even when they continue to be assessed as being too ill to work.

“Citizens Advice Bureaux are already seeing clients worried about being able to pay their mortgage or meet basic living costs.”

As part of the welfare reforms those on ESA have to take part in a Work Capability Assessment.

If they are found to have limited capability for work they could be placed in what is called the “work related activity group” – and they will be expected to move towards work.

A smaller number of the most severely disabled claimants are placed into the Support Group, where contributory ESA is not time-limited.

Around 700,000 people will be affected by this change and some may be able to claim some or part of the amount they lose in means tested ESA that takes into account the total household income
and savings. But, 300,000 are expected to lose the full amount.

One claimant told Citizens Advice she had recently lost her sight and had to give up work. She then claimed ESA and was placed in the “work related activity group”.

Reliant

She still cannot safely leave her home on her own and is reliant on her family for help with all the normal everyday tasks.

Her husband’s wage pays the mortgage and other bills and her ESA pays for the food and any other expenses she faces.

She does not believe there is any realistic prospect of her having adapted sufficiently and finding work within the year timeframe and believes that they will lose their house as a result because the family simply won’t be able to make ends meet.

Gillian Guy adds: “We will be closely monitoring the impact the change has on families who are already struggling to come to terms with the loss of income following the onset of illness.

“Most of those affected have paid National Insurance all their lives – sometimes over three or four decades – believing that this will protect them if they become too ill to work.

“They are feeling very betrayed and frightened by what seems a very unfair and arbitrary change.”

Get help

If you get contributory Employment and Support Allowance – the form of ESA you should be getting if you paid the right amount of National Insurance contributions before you were ill – you may be affected by changes.

If you’re in the Work-related Activity Group, you can only get contributory ESA for a maximum of one year. You won’t be affected if you’re in the Support Group, for those not expected to be able to work again at any time.

If you have a condition which is getting worse, you may be able to go into the Support Group instead of the Work-related Activity group. If your contributory ESA stops, you may be able to get income-based ESA instead. It will depend on your income and savings, and any income and savings of a partner, if you have one. If you were getting both contributory ESA and income-based ESA, you will get more income-based ESA to replace the contributory part. If your money goes down as a result of these changes, you might be able to get more of other benefits, such as Housing, Council Tax, Pension Credit or Tax Credits.

For more information, go to www.direct.gov.uk or get detailed personal advice from your nearest Citizens Advice Bureau

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