'Why I went to court for my disability payments'

[stu007]

'Why I went to court for my disability payments'

 

The number of people going to court to try to win back a key disability benefit is expected to continue to rise this year, a leaked letter seen by the BBC suggests. We follow one woman who took her case to tribunal.

 

Debbie Neal was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease 10 years ago. She takes dozens of pills each morning to manage her symptoms - sickness, high blood pressure and seizures.

 

She may well need a transplant in future.

 

For the moment, she has to empty excess fluid from a tube attached to her stomach, and replace it with new liquid from a bag, five times a day.

 

"It is a burden," she tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. "They say, 'Don't let it affect your life,' but you can only live your life to a point.

 

"I can't even remember what it was like not doing it."

 

READ MORE HERE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39745403

[Max1968]

I read that and also the story on another link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38049391

 

 

It's absolutely disgraceful it maddens me so much. Vulnerable ill people missing out and yet we send millions abroad to teach South African children how to play Rugby or Argentinian children on how to play football!! Ok that may be too simplistic but you get my drift!

 

 

I have recovered somewhat now with my vertigo (although far from perfect) but I am still awaiting treatment for my Sleep Apnea and am awaiting a re trial so to speak with a Tribunal due to their incompetence in allowing an unregistered GP to sit on my previous one. But since I lost that tribunal for ESA back in August I have applied for over 300 jobs and have received just two interviews and when they realised I was partially deaf and had been ill for over a year they dismissed my application pretty darn quickly!

 

 

It's not quite as easy as the Government thinks it is!!!!!!!

[Nystagmite]

It's a ridiculous system.

 

It was clear when I got my result, they just read the points given and not the actual report - there were a lot of contradictions there. I also felt that the nurse didn't understand my disabilities at all. She also had the nerve to call my consultant and GP liars. Because of course, neither have any idea what they're talking about.

 

I also found it bizarre that under DLA, I got an award for various issues and suddenly under PIP, I wasn't awarded for those issues. I was told it's because the criteria has changed. But it hasn't changed so much. I did my reconsideration and went from 0 on mobility, (as a mobility cane user, I should have got at least 10 for using an aid in unfamiliar places) to 12. I pretty much repeated what was written on my original claim form!

 

My evidence was ignored too. ENT doctor and hearing therapist both reported that I have issues hearing and general difficulties communicating which hearing aids won't fix. DWP say hearing will fix those issues. They must know something no-one else does then.

 

You can't make a decision on someone's disabilities in a 30 minute - 1 hour assessment. No-one took into account that my disabilities vary a lot. Unfortunately for me, they caught me on a good day - a day when my hearing was ok (although, my main problem is background noise - of which there was none) and my memory wasn't too bad.

[Max1968]

Nystagmite - Bang on I couldn't have put it better myself. As a patient you have months and months, in some cases years, of doctors, consultant appointments, procedures, tests, the whole package and in the end of it all in my case it was never fully diagnosed. I was just fortunate that anything sinister was ruled out but it didn't help in my constant vertigo attacks. However the findings of a 1 hour appointment with a basically qualified HCP from Romania were preferred to the findings of my GP, several top consultants and endless pages of evidence that I was a liability to myself let alone anyone else!! And when my GP did speak up and write the Tribunal deemed that he was just writing to help my benefit claim nothing else, despite, as I reminded them, that the DWP ask you to get written evidence from your GP and consultants. Indeed if I were him I personally would sue the ******** off them for insinuating such a cast on his character and professionalism.