Thursday, July 25, 2013

ESA: these ba*tards are really grinding me down right now

from the Facebook page The People Vs The Government, DWP and Atos’:


i just wanted to share part of my story and experience of ATOS with you, for me it all started back in 2007 when after a tragic event i started suffering from anxiety, post traumatic stress and depression, not only that but a few years later i was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome which causes a whole lot of health problems, too many to go into now but basically i was fine on incap at first, they pretty much left me alone, i was getting help from my gp and making some progress UNTIL this stupid conservative government came into power and that all changed, i had my assessment and received a phone call a few weeks later informing me that i missed out on ESA by a few points, i asked why this was and was told that one of the questions they assessed people on was whether or not they turned up to the assessment and if they were able to stay for the whole interview and i basically failed on that. I explained that i had no choice but to attend and stay because if i didnt it was made perfectly clear that i would be automatically ruled out of ESA anyway, so 10 mins later the guy phones back, apologies and tells me that after considering what i had said he had decided to make up those extra points so i could get on to ESA he told me that without seeing people face to face it was difficult to assess peoples claims with only knowing the information that my assesser had provided and after talking to me for a while he said he realized i was being genuine. Now whilst i was extremely relieved i was also really shocked at his revelation, these people are making these decisions without really knowing much if anything about the person and their illnesses, it is so wrong!!! I have another review coming up soon but i hope to god i can find work before then, i am ill and not fit for work right now but having to struggle at work every hour of everyday and probably making myself even worse has surely got to be a lot easier than going through all this crap all the time (its not just the assessments its all this stress and upset im getting at the job centre too) or at least thats what im starting to think, these ba*tards are really grinding me down right now