Disabled woman starved to death after benefits withdrawn

[EllieBellend]

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere but this is truly shocking. Disabled woman let down by all the agencies and basically starved to death after benefits withdrawn. Let down by everyone, the poor poor woman.

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/dwp-hounded-disabled-woman-for-years-before-her-starvation-death-papers-show/

No, but then it's not really about money is it? Because she had money. She needed better mh support cause most people don't starve themselves to death to protect their savings.

Some forms of psychiatric illnesses absolutely 1000% count as disabilities.

It's clear some people don't have the slightest clue what the word "disabled" means.

There are plenty of recognised disabilities that are non-physical disabilities.

The idea that disability=wheelchair is dangerous and extremely ignorant.

I have massive sympathy for this poor woman and her family but it IS obviously a very complex case and "starved to death due to benefits being stopped" doesn't actually summarise the facts accurately.

If she was paying for a coffee and sandwich in a cafe then she had enough money to have eaten 3 square meals - if she'd been able to shop and cook, which she wasn't.

It really sounds like an unusually complex case - she had savings to buy a cottage, she'd run off repeatedly to places like Siberia and Israel, all of which cost money to get to! And she changed her phone constantly to avoid being bugged...

It basically sounds like she needed residential care, except that she didn't want it and would have been a constant flight risk.

Some people are very hard to help. I wish the NHS and SS had had the resources to do a better job of helping this woman to heal, I wish she could have lived a happy life. But I don't think she starved to death because her benefits were stopped.

This isn’t entirely accurate. Capacity is decision specific and based on the balance of probabilities. That said, I suspect they did not fully assess this woman’s capacity given they had hardly any contact with her!

Yes, I know. I'm highlighting the fact that her not having money wasn't the issue. There clearly was adequate money there, it's more a case of it was being inappropriately used. Not necessarily her fault (although I can't say that with any certainty as i didn't know this lady) but her very sadly "starving to death" can't really be attributed attributed not having money. It sounds like other kinds of support would have been better suited to this woman ie social support.

Oh god. too awful. The Tories have done immeasurable damage. How can we tolerate this in one of the richest countries in the world.