In the UK today, if you are a person with disability or chronic ill health,and you are not wealthy enough to live by “independent means”, you have to claim what are laughingly called “benefits”.
The so called “benefits” you can claim are Universal Credit, ESA – Employment Support Allowance, and PIP – Personal Independence Payment.
Universal Credit and ESA are both means tested, so if you are wealthy enough to have savings, that are not hidden in the Seychelles or other off shore accounts, you may not get them, although if you have over £6,000 in savings you won’t get the full amount either. So people that have managed to save a nest egg when working may also lose out, until they become broke.
PIP however is about how you disability effects you. It’s not means tested, anyone who meets the criteria, can apply.
Sadly though, PIP is not fit for purpose, it limits choice as it is, however if the government then decided to restrict it further with vouchers the government would just encourage even more disabled people to take their own lives.
It’s already shameful that being ill or having a disability stops people from living their lives as they would wish.
Before I got ill I spent many years as a child protection social worker, trying to ensure children and families were kept safe from harm. I have seen PIP. and disability from both sides. I have seen a very few folk that upon the face of it play the system, but given i am not their doctor, cannot feel what they are going through I could not say for sure, but have alsi seen countless folk who have been turned down when they should have been recieving it, had it stopped for technicality, and not then got it back, had it stopped out of some bizarre consequence for daring to try to live, and had it used as a threat for compliance.
Disability payment has been used as a diversion tool by consecutive governments since 1979. It has lead to the current system whereby people have to jump through hoops often at the worst times of their lives just to get a very basic level of support.
Disabled and Chronically Ill people are told they can claim for “benefits”, but these are not “benefits” they are our entitlements we have paid for through the systems that have been in place since way before I was born, “national insurance”.
Once people claim these so called benefits they are placed in a position where they live in constant fear of their entitlement being stopped, they are condemned if they are seen as trying to live as normal a life as possible, not only by the Department of Work and Pensions – #DWP, but also by the public and even people they see as friends or family. The effects of this fear also stretches to them being seen as scroungers, as an underclass, as what certain members of previous government have identified as “eaters”.
Even simple things like going on holiday are restricted, not only as where they can go but duration, having to risk losing their “benefit” – means to live and survive, if someone in the DWP deems their holiday breeches some internal guidance.
Beyond this, things that when I was working would have been confidential to me, such as my bank account, my spending, my economic habits are now scrutinised without even agreement or notification.
Having to live upon benefits due to illness is not an easy life, it’s not a choice or lifestyle. When I worked full time I had a purpose, I had reason to live, I also had an extremely good wage and standard of living, giving that up to survive upon benefits was never a choice.
People see me on the few better days I have, and if I am coping with the constant pain, the exhaustion, and putting on the act, which so many of us feel we have to do, the making out to onlookers, to friends, to family that we are coping, if I can put my brain fog and confusion to one side long enough to appear interested or focused in a conversation, then they will have no realisation of my fight, of my battle I fight each day.
Sadly though because people only see me on the days I feign being able to manage, they see me as a fake, as a scrounger, as someone living a life paid for by everyone else.
The thing is they do not see me on the days where I cannot even get out of bed to make it to the toilet, where I cannot stand long enough to make a brew, where if no one is here I don’t eat, when I only see a grey mist of disinterest, despair and hopelessness. they will not understand the living in constant pain, of every movement hurting, of not being able to undertake the most basic of tasks.
People do not have any understanding of the effects of not being able to plan or commit, of having to cancel appointment after appointment, to the point of being struck off dentist, doctors and consultants lists. Of having housing threatening you because you had to cancel three appointments for your gas safety check.
People do not see the fear of the doorbell, the not being able to let folk in because you have not been able to complete the most basic of domestic tasks or personal care. The loss of pride in your home, in your life and in your self.
It’s impossible for many an outsider to recognise how illness strips away not only pride, confidence and self worth, but the relationships we held dear, not only friends but close family. I now have no relationship with my son or daughter, and at times only a fractured one with my parents, and sister, and the loss of countless friends that once called me “brother”.
So before you or government judges people with disabilities, with life restricting and threatening conditions, with terminal illness, before new legislarion is brought in to vilify us even more, to test our resolve to remain alive, to prevent our inclusion as valued human beings, to identify us as even more worthless, to steal our choices, to destroy any hope of living a sustainable and valued life,please think.
Disability and chronic health conditions are sadly too common, they are not expected, not part of any plan we may have, they hit us at any time, often when we begin to feel our lives are worthwhile, whether measured financially or in the self respect we hold.
The only difference between you and someone in need of the support PIP should bring is circumstance. You may be well today, but tomorrow…..? That’s why we pay “national insurance “, it’s why we used to value families and community.
So stop condemning the most vulnerable in society, and give us the respect and support we all as humans deserve.
Jonesy, simply a human 