Man refused benefits dies of starvation

[2old2beamum]

A 44 year od man with mental health issues, aspergers and OCD deemed capable of work has benefits reduced to £40/week dies and has a BMI of just over 11. I weep with shame.

You see I fundamentally differ - since my children were born and one nearly died at birth due to incompetence - I have never trusted any state provision whatsoever.

Look, I'm not talking about blind trust. I've chucked an idiot midwife out of my house before now. I would seek my own evidence and advice before a major medical or educational decision.

But at a certain level, you need to have some faith or you couldn't carry on. I don't call my children's school every 30 minutes to make sure they are still operating. I don't ask to see the driver's license of the drivers on a public bus. I drink water from the tap without testing it for poison.

My fundamental point though is not that the state is utterly trustworthy. Any system full of humans will never be that, and the current government's tactics are fairly slippery too.

Rather my point is that if the state let Mark Wood down, it is the state's fault, not the family's fault for not noticing / helping / supporting. I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable with any attempt to shift the blame toward them.

ATOS was established to weed out the benefit cheats and get those who could work off disability benefits.

Instead of finding a job this man starved to death - an anorexic with OCD and anxiety. I think it's fair to say ATOS were spectacularly wrong in their assessment that this man was fit for work.

^^ This

You learn very quickly when you become involved with all these authorities that there is no 'safety-net'. It just doesn't exist.

It's hard enough to get help for a family member when you yourself are well and able to jump through the necessary hoops. I cannot imagine how someone with this man's disabilities could or even should have been expected to deal with these bureaucrats without help. It's a ridiculous expectation.

Some people with an autistic spectrum disorder like Aspergers have very poor appetites and just are not driven to eat by hunger. It's just part of the condition.

So what's the answer. We didn't like the over-intrusive 1950s way of doing things where claimants were 'known' to the DWP equivalent and managed personally by the local Labour Exchange /Health Services and those organisations were far more paternalistic/ authoritarian (take your pick) then they are these days.

Getting Adult MH Services and Social Services involved with an adult with Aspergers is well nigh impossible these days unless that person also has serious mental health issues. Even then it's normally a case of reaching a stable state before discharging to the care ogf the GP. Your GP no longer knows your family medical history intimately, your neighbours have their own busy lives to lead. The charitable sector has no statutory responsibility to ensure it meets your needs or for your future well-being.

It must be a very scary experience for anyone who needs assistance these days as those that really need help are the people who are less likely to receive it.

Gill. Yes I can imagine.

Going through the ESA process including assessment, denial, appeal and award taxed dh and I to the limit. He has a severe and enduring mental illness, but no learning disability, and we are both competent and well used to forms, procedures, record-keeping etc. It still meant six months of highly increased psychotic and mood symptoms for dh, to the point where we pulled out of the system.

Perhaps we should all be more honest about the system generally. If IDS said, claiming sickness benefits is extremely tough and will make your loved ones much more ill, so if you care about them and are in work/have a floor space to house them, get them out of the system and support them yourselves, that would be honest, and it sounds as if this man's family would have done that if they had realised. But that doesn't quite fit the narrative they are banging on about the rest of the time. And perhaps isn't quite what they want to be known for.

There's also the rigidity of thought that can be part of having Aspergers. If the person does not want to do something, possibly something that you or I would think necessary for their well-being, then nothing will convince them to do it. That's a huge challenge for family memebrs as they cannot make that person accept the help that is offered. Often the person is judged by the authorities as competent to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are not the best for their well-being. It can be incredibly frustrating for families to have to sit back, unable to help.

I think what we need is some sort of register of vulnerable people and unfortunately I don't think you can leave it to the vulnerable person to self-refer. It would be hugely controversial to do this and doubtless cause lots of HR objections and accusations that it would stigmatise people. But if you had this then you could identify vulnerable people and ensure they were at least visited and hopefully assisted. You would have thought that this is already the role of Social Services, but it would seem not if we continue to see tragic cases like this poor man's.

ATOS was established to weed out the benefit cheats and get those who could work off disability benefits. A reasonable aspiration if done properly

Instead of finding a job this man starved to death - an anorexic with OCD and anxiety. I think it's fair to say ATOS were spectacularly wrong in their assessment that this man was fit for work. Absolutely right but the trouble is that the state cannot know the ins and outs of everybody's situations. It appears that the GPs letter may not have been passed on and nobody was monitoring him in any way.

Parsing I do know about my neighbours, seeing as you asked, as I live next door flats with several elderly people there and, yes, we do check on them and keep in touch as well as doing that for my mother and my aunt. I'm not saying that we should absolve the state of all responsibility but I do think we all have a responsibility to assist in providing that safety net. I also volunteer at a foodbank and do other charity stuff not that that matters.

Btw I do understand it is hard to get the right help for a vulnerable person having had to do it myself for an elderly relative with dementia.

The government seem to have no clue what is going on. There is no leadership. They lack any moral fibre or principles. They simply say whatever will get them votes or will please those financing their election campaigns.

Makes me ashamed of this country
Rip
Poor man

Torries are bastards

thats what the govt want, joan

for us to opt out, look after our own, make it so only the non-genuine actually have enough energy to claim

that is just not an acceptable aim in a decent society. we should aim to support the most vulnerable together as a community

Why are sick people told they are for for work, when there's no jobs for the well people anyway!

Beyond belief to me

Plenty of jobs out there, people too fussy

The problem is that the original policy of the Government i.e to get those people who should not be on benefits back to work, has to be put into practise.
And that's where it all falls down. You have over-zealous civil servants with no idea of all the possible scenarios that exist, such as those with Aspergers who cannot acquire the help they need, and they set unrealistic targets for the companies that they allow to bid for the administration.
Those companies then have to meet these unachievable targets at the lowest possible cost to please their share-holders (and subsequently find that even then they cannot make a profit). Denying the poor chap with Aspergers, OCD and other mental health problems the benefits he is entitled to is a very tiny step for the company towards meeting it's overall targets. They care not a jot about that man and nobody else does either.

Plenty of Jobs out there. People too fussy . Yeh. That woman in a coma was a right fussy fucker

But this man appears to have had mental capacity for quite a lot of decisions and for at least some self-care. He had help in place, in the form of benefits and in particular, his GP, who recognised his vulnerability and took their safeguarding responsibilities on board by providing timely and clear medical evidence; they are allowed to do this for ESA assessments, though the ESA system will not inform you of this up front and who pays for this work is a problem. This man had at least some basics for survival in place. Under the Incapacity Benefit system, I think it is likely that he would have been recognised as having lifelong needs and would have had an award that he could rely on. It must be said that IB used to take a very long time to get set up, and required a lot of demanding paperwork, so there would always have been the risk under that system of him dying while the claim was being made. But to think that your relative is supported, that his needs are recognised and that you can relax a little bit, and for him then to have two entire planks of his support removed, is a different order of things.

It is very true that general support for adults with developmental conditions is appalling.

Just ignore. I hope the poster never has a family member who needs the assistance of the state They may then start to understand the issue.

Yes ignore.

A reasonable aspiration if done properly only it wasn't was it? A French IT company masquerading as a 'health company'. Staff = 2 week accredited course. That's all. Now compare that to the YEARS of training your GP has. Not so proper after all.

Is that to me sauce and gill you've got a point. Can't educate the ignorant and all that. I am amazed at the fact there's clear evidence that the ATOS FFW decision if not wholly caused his death at least accelerated it; are simply saying "where was his family". Not the bloody point! :(

'The state cannot know the ins and outs of everyone's situation'

No but if a person who has been awarded ESA in the past is sitting in front of you for your renewed assessment as a state contractor, if the system requires you NOT to find out why that person was considered to be unfit for work at the time, and NOT to find out what that person's current diagnoses might imply for their fitness for work, unless they themselves offer you written medical evidence, and in fact NOT to ask any questions other than a very short standard list, then that is a structural discrimination against those who will struggle to provide evidence because of their abilities and conditions. Which is nonsense. Because it just leads to a hugely expensive appeals system, paid for separately by taxpayers/the DoH, not ATOS, and increased illness, disability and death.

What it does result in is figures showing lots of people leaving the system. So the appearance is the opposite, of reduced illness. Just as the era of the incapacity benefit system appeared to show reduced unemployment.

While this is clearly a case where the person wasn't fit for work, there IS work out there. From friends struggling to recruit for their businesses to a huge shortage (in my area at least) of cleaners, window cleaners and gardeners. A cleaner joined my networking group and is making a killing. A gardener came as a guest but hasn't joined because he immediately had as many clients as he could manage.

Maybe it's just here (Gloucestershire) or my sheltered life but nobody seems to want to do the work people need doing. I recently got my mum to do some research for me because I know if I placed a job advert I'd only get a couple of half-hearted CVs. I'd love a PA but someone willing to do part-time work (ideally in school hours) doesn't exist according to my efforts.