2 cases to present to the panel
Case 1: A 50 yr old woman, who has been unable to work for the last 20+ years due to a degenerative disease which grinds her bones way - she has lost about 6 inches off her height - causing acute pain in her joints which can leave her immobilized for days at a time. She used to work and up until her 2nd child was 6yrs old.
She has never claimed off the sick, as (in her own words) "There are people out there worse off then me. At least I can still walk. Also I don't want to take the **** out of the system" despite the fact that both her grown up children, friends and family members have all told her over the years that she is defiantly entitled to more.
Last year she was diagnosed with cancer of the blood (I forget the name) so she has to take chemotherapy tablets.
She gets £185 (approx) every 2 weeks, rent and council tax are also paid, but that's it. She soon to lose £14 out of her money (every 2 weeks) as the house she lives in with her daughter has a spare room - which is used 1-2 nights a week by her grandchild - and the government deem that an unnecessary extra space and there is also the possibility that the council tax benefit will be stopped or reduced also (due to council cuts in the local council).
Now she is also having to go to "Back to work" interviews with the benefits people, to try and assess if she can work. She her self has said that she would love to work, but with her bone condition and the chemo tablets she can't always be relayed up on to attend a job position. The assessors have so far said that there is no way that they could put her in a job with all her conditions (which have all been verified and confirmed by doctors, consultants and medical professionals over the years) but they have to follow the process through
Oh and FYI, even though she has a form of cancer, the government do not deem her form and the treatment (tables) that she has to take as 'bad enough' to warrant her going 'on the sick' permanently - she is basically not ill enough, which I think is disgusting
Case 2: A 35 yr old woman. She has 5 children, aged from 2 - 15 years old. Each child has a different father. She lives in a 4 bedroom council house (paid for) with all her children, plus her current partner and his child (6 years). She is entitled to child benefit for each of her children which amounts to approx £100 every 2 weeks (£20 per child). She gets her own benefits as she is on the "sick" (apparently, but I don't know what is wrong with her) which has brought her other bonuses.
She takes all the kids to Florida every year, has sky and flat screen tv's. And she has never worked a day in her life. The house is a bomb site and the kids run riot
This is what is wrong with the benefits system. It is too easy to mess with it and the people who should actually be helped out, have to jump through 100's of hoops before they will even be listened too and when they are finally getting somewhere it take for ever to get anything resolved.
The benefits system is a joke, it should never be better to be on JSA or what ever then it is working...never
