Dear DWP and Tribunal Service,
Thank you for your letter which tells me that I was awarded 6 points after appealing against the original decision to award me 0 points in my claim for ESA.
I have decided not to appeal again because I know that the stress of doing so will likely kill me or, at best, worsen my health to a point where I may never regain any ability to walk, talk or breathe unaided.
Thank you for your letter which tells me that I was awarded 6 points after appealing against the original decision to award me 0 points in my claim for ESA.
I have decided not to appeal again because I know that the stress of doing so will likely kill me or, at best, worsen my health to a point where I may never regain any ability to walk, talk or breathe unaided.
My decision not to appeal again may lead you to believe that I know I don’t have a chronic illness: that for the past 11 years, whilst receiving Incapacity Benefit, I have been a whining, malingering scrounger. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I know I am ill. Even my hapless, hopeless GP knows I am ill (presumably that is why he has been writing me ‘sick notes’ since 2001 and continued to do so whilst I was appealing the WCA’s decision).
No…I know I am ill and, if that man at the Tribunal was a real doctor, he knows I’m ill too but, then, this whole process isn’t really about finding out about who is too disabled or too unwell to work, is it ? This process of ESA is really about money and stats. It’s about the dreaded ‘descriptors’: a term that has ‘Orwellian’ written all over it.
The ‘descriptors’ are about a series of ‘tasks’ which we can or cannot do, judged by a ‘trained medical professional’ who can, apparently, see how I am just by looking at me, know answers to questions about how I feel physically, mentally and emotionally without asking me ..and then enter a tick in a box so that a computer will spew out a ‘decision’ about whether I am fit to work at a job which probably doesn’t exist.
So, please don’t take my decision not to appeal as an admission of guilt.
I know I am ill. Even my hapless, hopeless GP knows I am ill (presumably that is why he has been writing me ‘sick notes’ since 2001 and continued to do so whilst I was appealing the WCA’s decision).
No…I know I am ill and, if that man at the Tribunal was a real doctor, he knows I’m ill too but, then, this whole process isn’t really about finding out about who is too disabled or too unwell to work, is it ? This process of ESA is really about money and stats. It’s about the dreaded ‘descriptors’: a term that has ‘Orwellian’ written all over it.
The ‘descriptors’ are about a series of ‘tasks’ which we can or cannot do, judged by a ‘trained medical professional’ who can, apparently, see how I am just by looking at me, know answers to questions about how I feel physically, mentally and emotionally without asking me ..and then enter a tick in a box so that a computer will spew out a ‘decision’ about whether I am fit to work at a job which probably doesn’t exist.
So, please don’t take my decision not to appeal as an admission of guilt.
I know the truth and so do you. It’s just that, sometimes, the truth hurts and gets in the way of what you call justice.
Regards,
Cusp (age 56, ill with M.E. since 1972, diagnosed by the excellent NHS in 2001 and messed about ever since)
Cusp (age 56, ill with M.E. since 1972, diagnosed by the excellent NHS in 2001 and messed about ever since)
