Monday 8 June 2015

Benefits Land ..Altogether now

Well lets bang our heads against a brick wall just for the fun of it , yet again Mr Bah Humbug has been rejected on appeal for ESA , hes not had a good day today at all . The Job Center sent him on a work course to the world of Lagat Training , I had to drop him at the door this morning , he goes in to find hes late , the course starts at 9.30 despite him having a letter stating 10, this is the same letter everyone has been sent by the Job Center and instead of 4 hours a day it is now 7 1/2 hours a day sat in a classroom writing and computing , apparently he should have attended in a shirt tie and suit , nobody told anyone this . Hes also now classed as illiterate because hes just had a wrist operation so cant write due to the tremors and lack of feeling in his hand . There was far to many people to fit in the room and he wouldnt have been able to get up and down as he has to pretty constantly , they also had those weird cocktail bar stools which none of the disabled people attending would have been able to sit at , they moved them to another room once he complained,  but once again you couldnt stand up ,your seats were back to the wall with no room to pass them . So he complained and pointed out he couldnt sit for 7 1/2 hours and that as he hadnt been told that he would be their that long how could he get lunch ? Have a sandwich delivered perhaps ? Also in the event of a fire alarm who would help the three cripples out of the room ?  He cant walk any distance and its getting worse by the day . They decided the course was unsuitable for him and rang the Job Centre who wanted to see him immediately , they told him to just pop up the road and speak to them direct ...err he cant walk that far , so he had to ring me to come from work and fetch him , to take him there . Now he has attended many courses but they got him on a bad day when he was in militant cripple mode , sorry Lagat Training that just isnt good enough by anyones standards and I dont see why the disabled should be sanctioned for poor planning by the Job Centre .
They actually were quite helpful at the Job Centre  and we got seen quite quickly , he had to fill in a form , well I did stating why he hadnt been on the course because its a mandatory sanction of benefits for non attendance , so that goes off to a decision maker to see if they will sanction him ...OHM.....
Now to the fun bit his ESA appeal makes for hilarious reading , hes gone to scoring nil points to scoring 9 points for mobility , so they admit his walking is bad at last , this is rather hard to miss , but once again he gets penalised for not using a walking aid , errrr if you cant hold a stick how do you use one , and crutches are a no brainer with plates and pins holding the top of your spine together , so he walks a bit like a drunken sailor or as he charmingly puts it ,  like i have a broomstick up my butt , it aint pretty , its damned painful and its only getting worse . Now he also got penalised for having a house with stairs in , im sorry but if youre recently disabled they dont just say heres your bungalow . In fact there no help until you get your PIP assessment that has taken 5 months and we have just got the number to request the forms , for an Occupational Health Visit . The government has just been hauled through the courts for taking 10 months to sort out some PIP assessments , but once again even if your judged to need a stairlift or adapted bath etc . it can be a very long wait  due to funding in your area .
On a plus note we saw the 6th locum GP this year at our GPs , this one looked at Mr Bah Humbug looked at his notes and said has no one ever done any blood tests or suggested a neurologist? Hooray finally , for the last year  ive asked every consultant and doctor that he has seen could his injury be masking a bigger problem , he is still getting worse , his speech slurs sometimes ,he has difficulty swallowing sometimes , his tremors are getting worse and are spreading to all his limbs and his arms seem to be twisting so that he doesnt hold his hands in the right direction his walking gets ever worse . Friends who havent seen him for a while are horrified . But if the blood tests are negative I would think he will see yet another locum GP who will refuse a neurology request on the grounds of cost ....OHM

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