Call-me-Dave is a mendacious sack of shit. Of course, we all know that, and make allowances – it’s when he tells the truth, or the part of it that pleases the Daily Mail, that we have problems.
He said, today “Everyone on all sides of the house should recognise that DLA does need reform. There are 130,000 people on DLA who have not had a claim revised at all since the benefit was introduced in 1992. There are three quarters of a million people who have had the same claim for ten years and no contact from the department.”
1992? I haven’t had any contact since my Mobility Allowance was awarded for life (which was actually the mid seventies), in 1986.
That seems fair enough to me, as I am never going to recover. At the time I had wide-ranging damage caused by being struck by lightning in 1983, ME/CFS, asthma and bronchiectasis. Since then the last two have metamorphosed into COPD since the development of emphysema in 1995, and now I have heart failure (stage 4), and widespread osteo arthritis, an effect of the lighting strike. To sum up, I’m pretty much screwed. Permanently. I might not, in fact, live long enough to be reassessed for PIP.
So the fact that I haven’t spoken to anyone from the DWP about DLA since 1986 bothers my conscience not at all.
However, it seems that Cameron is entirely ignorant of the fact that there are (possibly very), many people with claims that pre-date the change to DLA in 1992, when we had the separate benefits of Mobility Allowance and Attendance Allowance. The smug twat isn’t as infallible as he thinks.
As I’ve said before, PIP is merely an excuse for reviewing all DLA awards, indefinite (as they are now), or not. And, of course, winnowing out all the bad backs ** – and god help those people who are mentally ill (I don’t claim to understand the mechanism by which the mentally ill qualify for DLA, but some do, I know).
**A condition loved by fraudsters as it’s so hard to disprove.
There are conditions, though, that plain, old-fashioned sanity says it would be futile, and a waste of money, to investigate. Mine, for example, which are a matter of record going back to 1946 (though sensibly, maybe no further than the seventies, as the older parts of my hospital records are, I know for a fact, lost, and the old GP records probably worn to rags by now). Nevertheless, there is ample evidence still extant.
There are very many people in my position – we aren’t going to get better, so why waste our time and public money? Having said that, I have no doubt that the Atos scumbags will find many of us perfectly capable of walking, a problem I’ll address nearer the time.
Likewise, amputees won’t have grown new legs, and the blind won’t have magically gained vision they might never have had, so what’s the point of reassessing them?
Along with the bad backs, it’s people with conditions that have no solid diagnostic criteria, like ME/CFS, and Fibro (both diagnoses are based on symptoms and history), who are going to be seriously screwed and, as yet, I have no ideas on the subject, though I hope to nearer the time. My advice for now is haunt your GP, and get referred to a consultant specialising in the conditions, so that you have someone willing to support your claim
The mentally ill, I feel very strongly, should be left alone. Yes, that’s another group susceptible to fraud (it’s not hard to fake depression, for example, as there’s so much been written about it), but for the overwhelming majority, the review process can only make them worse (for many, recovery is just a dream). I see no point in that.
myself i am past the point of been cured there is recovery in bpd at about 10% the goverment sanctioned me a few weeks past the area job centre have lifted this after i wrote to my mp or and updated my job seeker agreement i got dla no problem straight away 7 mounth ago they diagnosed me when i was 29 david camrron took his first shot by forcing the job centre to get results and i felt that directly i have no doubt in my mind this is not the first attempt and i dont think my story is over by a long shot they kind of label you put you back on the shelf then tell you your not ready to be helped even voe i want that and tell you to goto work well intill you end up back in hospital recovery is just a dream and people write it im off to my doctor on friday after my theropist saying i am not ready for theropy because i am to unstable and i am going to ask him for a sick note and i am going to ask him what he thinks i should do now he has let me down as a doctor who had high hopes with theropy so i to had high hopes i will walk away with a cpn maybee helps me but im no better and cant get on with my life but i will continue doing my studies at uni with the help of a mental health mentor hopefully i can sort this all out before i finish my degree and go and get a job and actualy keep it that is my aim at the end of the day it seems a circle that just goes round and round and never ever ends plus i have no idear what i am going to say to the disabilty advisor at the job centre i think she was hoping i got into theropy i was as well if my doctor says i am not ill and i hope he does then he can take my label off me and i will train as a theropist myself and i would help people and i would take the risk if someone was unstable if they wanted it i get reassesed in 2013 not to long off but i might be going on ESA all the proffesinols have pointed me that way apart form my doctor but then there is all the tests etc i have allready had them off many times in hospital and they never change you just basicly tell your story to another doctor plus theres that thing at the moment that nothing is an illness anymore its a condition i dont know where david camron is going with us mentally ill
Easy to fake being depressed! Really? How easy is it to fake the scars on your wrists?
Normally, a comment that starts from the premise that I’m wrong, would be binned, but let me explain. . .
First of all – and my knowledge has been gained as a carer and sufferer, so spare me any more of your self-centred bullshit – not everyone who’s depressed is suicidal, and not everyone who is suicidal is a cutter. Drugs have always been very popular – I have my own stash, though I’m not depressed, I’m seriously ill – high buildings, bridges (railway and river), even motorways (especially in the US), claim their share of victims.
And, for the sake of completeness, not everyone who is suicidal is depressed – they might be trapped in a cycle of events from which they see only one way out, something we’re likely to see a lot of when the benefits cuts bite.
And I stand 100% by my assertion that depression is easy to fake (though the sanity of anyone who actually wants to live on benefits is questionable), since the diagnosis depends on presentation and history. And there are about a zillion books out there detailing the subject to serve as primers,William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation being among the best known.