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The Welfare State
Had a look through the forums and didn't see any topic related to this so I thought I'd start one.
This subject is one which really gets me angry. You may have heard about 'Lizzie Bardsley', that silly woman from Rochdale off wifeswap who claimed £40,000 a year in benefits after having had EIGHT kids. I cannot believe it, £40,000 off the government? Absolutely disgraceful, and the woman doesn't do anything for it. It really makes me angry when my mum and dad have to work so hard for their money and then this happens. NO PERSON who is capable of work should get money off other people like this without working. There is no excuse, given that you are well. As for the 'Well, erm, she wouldn't be able to support her children if she didn't get the money off the government?' NO!! If she weren't able to support any children, she shouldn't have had the children! Isn't that common sense, that you do not get what you cannot afford? Or is it just me? I hate this child support system! Why can't people plan for their children and use contraception? Benefit scroungers really do my head in. It's such an easy way to get money. If I didn't have any self respect then maybe I'd consider doing it when I'm older. (BTW, I don't disagree with disability benefit, that is deserved) Your views please... |
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The welfare state was meant to be a safety net to ensure that people that needed help had it but unfortunately now it seems that more and more people are seeing the welfare system as a source of main income. A lot of people are having kids these days to supplement their financial status and the only people to suffer (apart from the tax payers) are the kids themselves.
Obviously not everyone on the welfare system are screwing it over, there are many people out there that are on welfare through no fault of their own but they aren't the ones that the press are interested in. The people who feign illness, disability etc are the ones that get all the publicity :( |
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No m8......we should carry on giving a house and money to every silly bint who doesn't fancy working for a living :afire:
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Yeah that really annoys me 2. Paul had a really bad accident in Oct 03, we took months and months of fighting to get his industrial injuries benefit, I was told by a former Social employee, that if Paul had lost his leg [which he nearly did] we would have been rolling in it. I got upet and angry by this, as I have a neighbour next door who we have had no end of problems with, he claims he has a back injury but he walks fine without his stick. But when assement time comes out comes the walking stick and the limp. I have reported him time and time again, but nothing is ever done to this guy, he has even threatened Paul with the stick!!!!!! I am still fighting for my husband to get DLA, but he got that fed up Paul ended up going back to work and we still do not even know if he is going to have his leg as he cannot stand to well on it at all now.
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I agree with what has been said so far, however, if all benefits except for disability benefits were abolished, don't you think there would be a sudden increase in people who had "disabilities" and this is a little unfair on those who have a genuine disability which prevents them from working and need the money.
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It has been in the news recently though that the government want to make some changes to the welfare state, some big changes since 1948. http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...293612,00.html |
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See most disabilties are in peoples heads and they convince themsleves that they have got something wrong when they havent. They are sponging off the state, genuine cases like Pauls take forever to deal with because of the fakies. You can see the pics if you want not very nice at all!!!
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Yes - my Mum has a blue badge for her car and is virtually housebound but refuses to apply for disability benefits as she doesn't want to be thought of a a scrounger. She also says there are other people who deserve it more than she does, and that she can manage quite well on her pension that she has paid into all her working life.
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I do, it is under phycosis in my nursing hospitial and home. I am not being rude or arrogant, but my husband has worked bloody hard and continues to do so, even when he had the accident that nearly claimed his life, he decided that he was not a state sponger, he had pride and self repsect and got back to work within 16wks of that accident, the company he works for could have kept him as well as the state but he is a worker not a shirker. I often cry when I see him struggling to walk or his leg colapses beneath him for no reason . The pained expressions on his face, the sleepless and restless nights since 10th of oct 03. I also have a mother who has mental health problems and I have mental health problems we both could sponge off the state, but I love being a nurse and mum loves her job. They should not have to live off the state, what would these people do??? if Mr Blair decided to get tough like the Swedes??? A lot of people would be in trouble wouldnt they?
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Having said that though I still disagree with your view that the majority of people on welfare are faking it. As with everything there will always be people that try to abuse the circumstances/system, unfortunately the percentage of people claiming welfare un-necessarily is increasing as more people see it as easy money for no effort. It does seem though that these days a lot of kids out there get pregnant these days as it's effort free income and many of them are too lazy/ ignorant to go out and get a job to earn their income. These are the people that I do not think should be allowed to leech from the welfare system, people that produce kids on a regular basis just to keep the level of income coming into the home. These people rarely pay their rates, rent, gas/electric/ water bills but do regularly demand more money, bigger houses, clothing grants etc and should be stopped. People that continuosly take money from the welfare/ NHS without actually working a day in their life should face some sort of restrictions in what they claim but then we all know that would just end in a trip to the court of human right :rolleyes: Maybe we should start a new thread, "welfare state cap, yes or no" ;) |
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Could get confusing if it's merged into the 'all cap discussions here' thread though!
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I see it everyday on a hospitial ward, they try to convience the DRs that there is something wrong with them. When we have case meetings we have to discuss the patients records and we see it time and time again the sme old, same old. I do not have any problems. The only problem I have is teenage baby machines, people who smoke round their kids and then claim they have chronic lung problems [I wonder why!], people who are so fat that they cannot move to get their arse off a chair and find a job, the ones who refuse to work as the welfare state is to much of a good thing and the ones who know there is nothing wrong with them but just do not want to work. The other week we had the DSS invesigation team on the ward asking for a patients notes as they had caught someone doing cash in hand benefits. He told them that he was just holding the leaflets for someone and he couldnt work as he had a bad back! And that he was under a consultant that had retired 4yrs ago [but he did not know that] I hope they make him pay every single penny back!
And yes I have dobbed my neighour in as I am sick to the back teeth of me and Paul paying of his life of leisure, Like Paul says when we get his compo were outta here and the sooner the better, as I refuse to supplement anyones cushy lifestyle and I bet plenty of people will agree with me on that! And by the way I work very bloody hard! |
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I mean what I say, Im sorry but I am like that, take it or leave it!
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Like your Paul I've worked since I was 15 and I've been paying my taxes since I was 17. In all those years I have never received any money from the welfare system even though I was out of work for 4 months after the plant I worked in closed down. Pride meant I refused to claim job seekers allowance in that time as a part of me would be ashamed to even go in and ask for it. Let's face it we all have a problem with the increase in people that are leeching money from the system due to their sheer idleness and I'm not even going to get started on those mobile baby factories that are hanging about in the city centres instead of going to school these days. There are however people out there that claim welfare to help top their earnings up so that they can afford to raise their kids and look after their families properly. Are these people sponging? No. Are they a minority? Probably ;) |
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My father is unable to work, but he doesn't get a big hand out like many do. He will not even have the Blue badge and free road tax because he's too proud. It means my mother has two jobs to keep finances manageable, the strange thing is somedays my father looks OK, then other days he is unable to get out of bed.
He worked all his life and had never been out of work, the problem started when he was made redundant. Not being the type shy of work he took a job in a timber yard along with a few other younger and fitter guys loading lorries with logs by hand, unfortunayely he did a lot of damage to his back in those few weeks and had to give it up. He applied for a job as a postman and was successful, he struggled around for about 9 months carrying the sack of letters until one day he slipped in the snow. He had to go on income support, and it was based on your last earnings. In those days postmen were not paid very well, so he didn't get a great deal of assistance. He came off income support for a while and did some driving work, but found that some days he was ok, and other he couldn't move. He eventually paid to go to a private specialist but he said the damage was too far, and an operation would not help. He is now on income support and finds it difficult to get about part of the time, I'm sure anyone seeing him on one of his good days would assume there's nothing wrong with him. Due to the damage to his spine, his one leg is a lot thinner than the other. My father doesn't do that well on benefits, but we do know some people who are coining it in for injuries far less severe than my fathers. Make no mistake, if he could work he would! |
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I used to have a view that I would never sponge on the welfare state and didn't believe in having a day off work sick. I would drag myself in no matter what having the view that if I felt rough I would still feel rough whether at work or home and being at work would take my mind off of it.
However things change and an accident coupled with a big deterioration in my health due to Parkinsons disease and osteoarthritis meant that I couldn't work. Principles have to change when hard reality strikes and benefits were the only way. I get DLA and other benefits but they aren't as easy to get as some people make out. It was quite a fight with the DWP as Sociable would back up if he was posting. What used to get me though was during the time that I was fighting with the DWP there were quite a few articles in the press about people being convicted for benefits fraud. Some people were making several claims under different names and getting them all passed. One chap from the Indian sub-continent was getting DLA under seven different names and many other benefits under even more names and had a seven figure bank balance hidden away. He had been caught out after several years and when checked by medical examiners was found to not even qualify for DLA. Over the last few years I have seen plenty of people who are disabled enough to qualify for DLA but are being refused it and plenty of others who are getting DLA but shouldn't be. Some people know how to work the system. On the other side of the coin there is my 85 year old Mother. She is disabled and gets various benefits besides her state pension. During her working life she worked hard and struggled to make ends meet. Now she is getting far more money than she knows what to do with. She could manage quite easily on half of what she is getting. Maybe if she was fitter and could get out she could spend more but then she wouldn't be getting as much as she now gets. The whole benefits system stinks and needs a good shaking up. Having several kids to enable you to have benefits income far above what most people earn should be one area that needs looking at. If the culprits getting the benefits knew that the rewards wouldn't be there I am sure their family size would never have got as big as it did. |
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The way the system works, for the disabled, is that initially after claiming you're pretty much left alone. Then the hassling starts. First off, you get a form called the "All work test". Takes about 2 hrs to complete and asks questions such as, "Can you put a hat on". If you tick the right boxes, and enough of them, you're left alone - for a while. If you're unlucky - e.g. the woman who checked your form had PMT - then you will be called for a medical, where a doctor who wouldn't be out of place in a Nazi concentration camp, sets out to prove that you can work and that there's nothing wrong with you. They have quotas - so if your medical is at the wrong time of the month, you've had it. The doctor is there to refuse benefits to as many people as possible. The theory is that those people who are entitled to benefits will appeal against the decision and most likely win. The reality is that an awful lot of sick people give up the fight and return to work - or try to - and make themselves worse.
My dad has been through the system more times than I can remember, and the forms, battles and visits to (D)SS offices were a constant feature of my childhood. He's always fought the Government and has always won. That doesn't mean that when a (D)SS envelope arrives he doesn't become depressed. His lumber spine broke and healed displaced because he didn't seek medical treatment - you didn't when he was young and in the industry he worked in. Pain is a constant feature of his life and he deals with it. He's now in his 50s and has arthritis and high blood pressure - he is still hassled by the (D)SS. It's the system and the people who staff it that are sickest though. |
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The problem is that any way the government has tightened up the DLA regulations to cut out the scroungers, it has only resulted in those that DO need the benefit struggling. For most of her teenage years, my sister was suffering from severe back pan. For several years, this was dismissed by our GP for various reasons (she slouched, she stood too straight were two). Eventually, we persudaded him to actually do somthing about it, and after several failed treatments (including going to a Chiropractor who nearly crippled her), the GP referred us to our local hospital, where they found a tumour at the base of her spine. Our local hospital couldn't handle the surgery required, so they referred her to the Royal National Orthopeadic Hospital (which is apparently the top hospital in Europe for bone surgery) where they removed the tumour. A removal which involved going through the base of her spine, and replacing her "sacrum" with a titanium implant. When she first came out of the hospital, she qualified for the top rate of DLA . She also qualified after every re-assement over the years, until a couple of years ago. The DSS sent a GP to assess her. He spent 10 minutes talking to her, didn't ask her to move in any way, and based on the questions he was asking, clearly didn't understand the operation she had been through (despite having a written statement from the consultant who performed the op). A few days later, we got a letter saying that she was no longer entitled to DLA. She was (and still is) signed off by the RNOH, so we consulted her consultant. He wrote a letter to the DSS, and, surprise, she was entitled. Now, my point is, that inbetween her current claim, and the previous successful claim, the government (under Tony Blair) had actually massively tightened up the claims system for DLA. For the record: We were told, by the RNOH, that had the GP we were under at the time actually done his job properly and ordered an MRI scan when she first went to him with a problem (or at least at some point in the first two years), the local hospital could have reduced the size of the tumour through chemotherapy, and removed it without going through the spine. While I agree there are a lot of scroungers, I don't believe most DLA claimants are scroungers. A hell of a lot aren't. It's not fair to tarnish everyone with the same brush. |
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The real question is just what level of long term ill health deems a valid DLA claim.
The current system shows it as too easy for fakers but too hard for real needs. So how do you go about making it the other way round ? so those in need get the right benefits without the hassle while warding off these fakers who get it so easily. With valid diagnosis it took me 3 years or so to get DLA, and that benefit is now in a large way is really just paying the interest on the debt I accrued supporting a wife 2 kids and the mortgage on the almost useless income support that you get today, for those 3 years. I really fail to see how anyone can fake it unless they are two timing the system by working aswell. However you *cannot* survive on income support alone so the need to subsidise your income somehow is a nessecity. So some who are really ill are still forced to a life of crime by working while claiming as its the only way to get a livable income. The current welfare state is not in anyway a safety net for those on long term ill health. Even with DLA a disabled household with the average 2 children are not on any great amount of money from the state. Having more kids to top up the income really isnt an option. |
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i think there should be a cap on child support, limited to say 3 children any more than that and you have to fully pay for them yourselves (excusing something like quads and other multiple births).
also unemplyment benefit should be limited to so many years in your lifetime, want to scronge you way through life and sooner or later you'll run out. |
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Some people don' realise, but it is actually very VERY hard to get on to benefits. I receive benefits to help with my living costs and its a very small amount. I get them because I am in full time education and I have no one to support me.
I left school and worked for a year for some money before I went to college and it took me 4 months to find a job, and i applied to everything i found, at least 10 out of the newspaper at a time and wandered the shops for ads. When I went to college i asked the council for advice and they first said i wasn't allowed any kind of benefit...so that would mean i would basically be homeless at 17. Having heard that the nice lady decides hmmm maybe i am allowed something... and sets me up with a load of forms to help pay my rate. This took another 3 months of going backwards and forwards. When i went to college i realised i had no money coming in for anything like to buy new shoes etc and i asked the Connextions lady at my college and apparentely the council hadnt informed me i was entitled to a little extra money for things like that. Conveniant. This was christmas time another 3 months down the line. So months and months it took me just to be able to get my A levels, and i'm no scrounger, i finish my A levels this year, work in summer and go straight to uni. I think all the benefit systems are quite corrupt, giving out to peopel that are lying and not out to people that do need it. But the media love to make moral panics out of these kinds of things, i'm sure the majority of people are in true need of benefits and as with most things its the odd few that spoil things for the lot. |
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He was very annoyed a few years ago, because the next door neighbour is also very ill with Parkinsons disease. My father was worried because the neighbour was using a big lawn mower and is not a very well guy, my father went over and they both struggled to mow the large lawn. He was reported to the DSS for doing paid gardening work, since that he now has to refuse help to the ill neighbour. |
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I wish they would leave Paul alone then as he will eventually lose is leg and then I will be his full time carer and I do not want to be one. If the man next door wants a mow a lawn and he has parkinsons thats his business. I know for a fact when I go onto the ward today there will be at least one druggy or one alcho there. They do not deserve anything as they are such a big drain on the system, it makes me laugh when they rant on and on, did we make them do that no!!!! As for my neighbour all he seems good for is inciting trouble in the street and even the asbo team have had enough!
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Here's a choice facing the youth of today: Picture two teenage girls aged 16.
Girl 1: is bright and want to be a doctor, she goes to college, then to university, she works part-time at night in a pub and sandwich making factory,so she can afford all the expensive medical books, she has to take out loan for tuition fees, and a student loan so she can live. Her parents aren't well off so they can't really help. After seven years of study,and working ****ty jobs just to survive she qualifies as a doctor. She then has to work 70hr weeks on very modest pay. She now also has to start paying off her debt mountain of £30,000 . She can't afford to buy a house as she's single and can't afford a mortgage as the lowest prices houses in the area are £80,000 . During all her study she paid tax and national insurance on her part-time jobs. She'll make it in the end, she may be in her early thirties by them and it will have been hard but she take satisfaction, and as a doctor, as her wage increases she be contributing into society, not that she took much out of society while she was studying. Girl 2: Thinks option 1 is far too hard, at 16 she gets pregnant, she is given a house and benefits, the benefits aren't a lot so she has a few more babies. By the time she's 22 she has 4 kids and a 4 bedroom council house. Soon she'll be able to buy that council house at a low rate. If she has a few more kids she'll get an even bigger house. She's never worked, never made a contribution to the state. She's a net user of the "welfare" state and never put anything into it. She reads this week that MPs are proposing that mothers should be "paid" a salary by the state to to stay at home and look after the kids. Nice one she thinks, I'm nobodys fool!!!!!!! |
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Many are that way because of things like PTSD created from war, to some over bullying at school, perhaps half them druggies you treat have actually been raped or other stuff like that but you condemn them ? |
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One of the biggest problems with the benefit system as it is is that to thwart the fraudsters they've made it so unwieldly, that it also makes it difficult for the people for whom it was intended to apply successfully.
The multi-page forms are enough to put off anyone with an ounce of self-respect, as the questions ask that you lay your entire life bare to them - no more privacy regards anything in your life. Of course, this is no obstacle to people with no self-respect, and I think it is fair to say that the benefit scroungers are all in that category. Then, even if you pass that hurdle, having filled out all the forms honestly you find that all sorts of things you wrote down now limit your entitlement - as the system tries to do it's best to give as little as possible. Again, those that are not honest do better - must be those scroungers again. After all of that, what you then maybe get it possibly not even enough. And then people wonder why we get so angry at the people raking in thousands a month on benefit. I have a child for whom we get a low rate of DLA, even though we should get more. And when I was made redundant a few years back and struggled to get back into work the amount of benefit I got each week was a small fraction of our grocery bill each week. Even though I'd always been employed and paid into the system throughout. It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that the honest, hard-working among us should fare so badly when we hit a rough patch, yet the lazy liars get it all handed on a plate. The solution is NOT limiting benefit or making it ever more difficult to obtain, but to make sure that those who do get it are not taking the p!ss. |
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We had problems when the wife was 'let go' from her previous job in July 02 (owner wanted to give the job to his son)
She applied for unemployment so that she could look for a proper job... but the DSS decided not to use last 2 years of tax (00-01 & 01-02 in which she'd been working full time and paying the tax and NI) but skipped a year back and put her into her last year of university (99-00 & 00-01). Hey presto, we've means tested you and have decided that you haven't paid enough NI contirbutions over the last 2 years (only worked part time* time at uni) you get nothing. Yep that right not a sausage! We were offered an appeal but were told that we could not appeal over the period that they assesed the claim! To add insult to injury, she went to uni as a mature student and had 10 + years of paying tax and NI before she went for full time education. This is the second time she's been refused unemployment, each time they seem to have a 'get out of giving people a bean' clause up their sleave. Scarlett, * oh yes she was paying TAX and NI on those part time earnings despite being a full time student... |
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Almost everyone knows at least someone who fiddles the benefit system, but this does not mean everyone does or will, 6 years ago I lost my job due to my wife's illness, constantly getting call's from the doctor or hospital to come for my wife, leaving work (was a debt collector) meant I did not do my job correctly.
I soon , I wasgot another job but again asked to leave before I was fired due to leaving work to collect my wife, or being called home. My wife has a condition were she pass's out between 3 times (good day) to 12 and more times a day, which causes all kinds of condition's to top it all off she also suffers from cluster headaches, When I lost my Job I went to the unemployment office, they advised me to claim IS and DLA for my wife, which we did. Does this make me a scrounger or sponger, think of the cost saved over the last 6 years with me being at home, it has resulted in a lot less doctor call outs, ambulance call outs, and visits to the hospital, that does not include the cost of home help which if I was working full time, that would be needed to assist my wife. I'm now 34, and to be honest prefer the working life, it was a lot easier, Imagine being up 2 nights on the run cause your wife has been ill, getting a few hours sleep, then on the 3rd day looking forward to a good nights sleep, you go to bed, and a hour later your woken with your wife crying her eyes out curled up in to a ball, rocking. We call the doctor out, who always gives her a shot of pain killer's, you go to bed, and think a few hours sleep, but no your wife hallucinates cause of the drugs and ends up waking the whole family shouting due to what she thinks she can see. Its not easy looking after someone who is disabled, and the above is just 1 little story of many that many carrer's have. Yet still I know of 2 people that were turned down for dla, and yet they were entitled to it, I too don't like people that falsely claim any benefit. /rant over, sorry. |
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Part of the problem with DLA is that they apply certain 'criteria' which are not apparent when you're filling in the forms. So you might be up&down all night looking after someone, but if you don't make it clear it was 5 times, rather than twice, or that each time you were up for 20 minutes, rather than 10, that would reduce your entitlement. Now whichever it is, if you had to cope with that every day&night there comes a time you need extra support, and that costs money. So either you get DLA, or respite care or whatever, but it seems that many of us can have neither. |
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True, but if they declare they work (and IMO they should), the level of DLA awarded may be affected by their salary. |
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I hate threads like this because it makes me feel guilty. I had my own very succesful business before I was taken ill. At the time I was lugging a huge suitcase full of stuff I needed for work and clothes and such like up and down the country. Before I was running my own business I was Nursing. When I was first investigated I didnt' think that my condition was serious, although it stopped me from doing 90% of the things I used to fly through before. Soon I had to say good bye to my little business. When I applied for income support I was given £50 a week to live on as I was not considered ill by the government or DSS. I struggled on that for over 6 months. I kept a privately rented flat going, bought food, rescued a dog and continued my NTL subscriptions. It was hard and very stressful.
I applied for DLA before I got diagnosed and, suprisingly for me, I was awarded the highest rates of care and mobility and a severe disability premium. My Income support went up and in fact before I moved to a council house I was given a back dated claim of DLA for £1000. This helped me move. Yes, I am having an extension built by the ocuncil off a disability grant and yes i probably will try to buy my own house at the cheaper rate. Some people would consider me well off. I get just over £200 a week to live on now. I've been on DLA for three years. Today I am buying the first pair of shoes I have had new for three years. Recently I was invited for a medical. although the condition I suffer from, MS, is one of the prohibited conditions which mean I don't legally have to attend. I have filled three forms in telling the DSS this. Eventually they realised I wasn'f fraudelent and told me I didn't have to attend the medical. I already knew that. I get "return to work" people ringing me up and asking me to attend interviews or loose my benefit. I attend and they can never find me a job that would allow me to sleep for a few hours in the day. Then they realise I am exempt from those meetings too. It's humiliating and embarrassing for me. I work for the welfare section of my local MS branch and help people get their entitlements EVERY day. I am not ashamed to be doing this. I am also looking for a nice person to come and fix my laser printer (HINT HINT) The reality is that we do not know the full story behind each claim or each disability. I suppose I oculd have become an alcoholic very easily. I mean I am a drain on society because thats how claiming makes you feel. I wish I had £40,000 a year. Things like transport, paying for carers and getting around would be FAR easier. None of that is provided freely either btw. I would hesitate to say my illness is all in my head. Although for a long time I did think it was. Many people going through any sort of aquired disability diagnosis do thinks that way. So I am a dredge on society and strangely becoming proud of it. Sian. __________________ Scastle it isn't true that DLA amounts get affected by your work salary. You are given different rates, in some cases HIGHER, than you get when you aren't working. Oh and you can claim for transport costs etc. __________________ Oh and if anyone wants help filling in their DLA forms I will help you out. It's not easy getting it right first time. I can also help with appeals. |
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Talking about means testing takes me back to the time I made my first claim for benefit. This was for income support and incapacity benefit which meant that the claim would be means tested. I filled in the forms and included in the section about capital that I held £7 in premium bonds. These were bought some 34 years previously when we first got married. The problem then became that they would not allow me income support as I could not send them the premium bonds. They wanted to see the actual bonds as proof that I had the amount of capital that I stated. It didn't matter that the £7 didn't make any difference to the amount I could claim. It took me quite a while to get duplicates and I actually found the original bonds before they arrived. It isn't as if the bonds themselves have any details on them regarding the holder. The DWP are so insistant on claimants following all the rules strictly to the letter but completely disregard them as far as they themselves are concerned. You fill a form in that takes half a tree to get enough paper for and send it in only to wait weeks or months for a decision. Quite often they tell you not to contact them about the claim for at least seven weeks or more and even if you do after that period of time you still have to wait and wait and wait. |
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Seti - still can't give you a greeny. Sorry.
One point about DLA. A lot of miners who lost their jobs when pits closed were put on DLA to keep them off the dole queue figures. Politics huh?! |
Re: The Welfare State
I totally agree with you seti and you andy, just because you cannot see your disability or Pauls it is so hard to claim anything. I am still fighting even to this day to make sure that Paul has everything he needs and I know I will never get what we are totally entitlied to, this is why I get upset.
Did you know Alchos and druggies get supplemented benfits so that they can get their stuff? I only found this out a few months ago and I felt sick. We are going to see if Paul can have extra help soon as the leg collapsing thing happens 20-30 times a day now and is distressing for both of us. but I know what they will say err I dont think so. I was told that I was entitled to carers allowance when Paul was first discharged. So I packed in my sisters job and decided to look after him myself as I did not want anyone else to care for him. I had to buy essential equipment so that he could come home as the DSS would not give us anything and the OT's and physio Refused to let him come home before I did anything. I asked for help for the equipment but was told you earn to much now go away. So applied for carers allowance waited 4 weeks and was told no. I was gutted as I could have took LOA but was told my grade would drop. So I have had to start all over again which is soul destroying as it took me 7yrs to get there and 4wks to lose it all. I have paid taxes, stamps etc since the age of 16 and then was told to get lost. So you can probally understand my bitterness and anger when nobody wants to help you, but you are expected to help every one else who knows the system inside out, I do not think so!!!!!!!!! I have had to start workin for an agency as I know for a fact Paul will lose that leg and I know he will need me and not our crappy welfare state. |
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It does seem very very unfair when some are able to lie and get benefits easily, and the needy find it difficult with many hurdles or face refusal. As I have said before, the benefit system generally favours liars. :td: |
Re: The Welfare State
You are totally right, DLA is for the dole wallers the goverment want to hide as it makes the figures look good!!!!! If you tell the truth you get nothing, lie you get everything.
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Re: The Welfare State
Hmm I think the miners had incapacity benefit :) Its a bit different to DLA. Incapacity benefit is something I can't get( would have £20 more a month) becasue I haven't paid enough tax !!
Alchies and druggies don't get any extra benefit. No Supplements, no nothing and believe me applying for a DLA award when yuo are a drug addict is next to impossible. Ask some of the people with mental health disorders who take hard, ilegal substances!! All they wil have is a tot of whisky supplie dby their nearest clinic or Pethedine or some other substance which supposedly allows them to come off the substance they are abusing. It is probably why alchies, druggies and people with mental health conditions make up most of our prison population. Allie I've pm'd you. Welfare is horrible to be on. It's even harder to actually get. As for the South Wales miners well some of them wil loose their benefits soon whether they have pnuemiconiosis or not. I stil ain't sure that they are on DLA though :) Maybe its me being stubborn. A scary thought. The government is introducing new ways of means testing and applying Incapacity Benefit to those who claim it. This means that some people like those with cancer, neuro disorders and cardio-thoracic disorders wil be taken off the benefit system entirely. Why is that scary cos its another round of testing, being medically poked and prodded and generally made to feel as if you are a scrounger!! Sian P.S> Thanks for my greenies everyone !!!! |
Re: The Welfare State
I remember when Paul had a medical last year they were hitting his bad leg with a medical hammer, the poor guy was in tears and then she started making him do flex's which he cannot do. isnt the scar enough, he has another medical next week and he is dreading it and to be honest I cannot blame him!!!
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Good post BTW. |
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Take Paul to the Quacks and get him to give you a letter stating the current reflex level of Pauls
Personally unless the muscle degradation is that bad I can not understand why she needed a reflex test in the beginnig. The state of flexing should have been enough of an indication. You know that most relex tests are done to judge the onset of peripheral neuropathyas well as localised nerve damage. I assume she was checking for localised nerve damage!! As i siad get the quack to do one first !! Take the results with you. If he refuses get Paul to tell him how scared, embarrassed whatever good descriptive words he can come up with to get your doctors sympathy. PS I am still scanning your stuff !! |
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