WCA appeal: Benefits stopped. 64 year-old waits over a year for hearing

Reblogged from Unemployment Movement:

Please share with me... an anniversary. It is exactly one year since I was 'passed' by Atos as wholly fit for work (or failed, depending on how you look at it). 

I have no choice but to dispute Atos' findings.

You who read this post cannot know whether it is Atos who is correct, or me. However, as it happens, that it neither here nor there; there is a tribunal whose job it is to try to establish the facts. 

However, a year on, I'm still waiting for my hearing. A year of half-benefits, during which I lost my home because I could no longer pay my rent. A year of stress, during which my health has collapsed. A year stolen from the comparatively few I have left, since I'm getting close now to my 65th birthday.

Even were I in good health, the endless storm of shit would be hard to cope with: the sort of things I share with so many others that do get some publicity - one meal a day for the past year - and the sort of things that I share with so many others that don't get any publicity - one cracked tooth last month and another broken this week (and relentless low level toothache) but no chance of finding the £40+ (possibly £214, if intense work is required) required by the dentist.

I think you'll forgive me if I repeat the old truth. Justice delayed is Justice denied.
But now, to add insulting injury to insulting injury, I've been warned by DWP that even the reduced benefit I'm on while I wait for my hearing was only for 12 months, and that if that hearing hasn't taken place in just a few more weeks, my benefit will be stopped altogether. The fact that this ludicrous delay is none of my doing is by the way.
'What do I do then?' asks I. 

I can apply for job seeker's allowance, it seems. Of course, if I do so, I must withdraw my appeal, since my appeal is based on the premise that I am unable to work, and to be on JSA I must state that I'm willing and able to work.

Fortunately, if I 'choose' not to go for JSA, I only need to survive with no benefit for a few months, because then I'll be able to apply for my pension. Of course(!), 'til then, I will have to take into account that though I've got no benefits coming in, I'll have to find the money each week to pay DWP my National Insurance contribution. Nice touch, that.