Re: Atos Medical Assessments
Hi John
My older sister, who is 25, has ME and fibromyalgia and is unable to work. She can only manage a short walk each day. She was refused ESA but appealed with the help of my father and managed to get Legal Aid - there is a legal centre near my house which provides free legal advice and legal aid. It took almost a year but she won the appeal. This was almost 2 months ago however and they still haven't paid her any money because they still haven't decided what she's entitled to. It involves lots of paperwork going back and forth and lots of misunderstandings and misinformation on the part of the government agencies.
It is awful how they put ill people through so much stress and hassle. Since there was some publicity about people claiming disability benefits because they couldn't walk who were then found to be doing marathons and selling pirate videos in their spare time the government have used it as an excuse to 'crack down'. They set themselves a target to get 1 million people off Incapacity Benefits (something like that amount) but they apparently have no way of counting how many people are on it.
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"Every day, every hour, I wish that I was bullet proof"