SlythKris (tumblr backup babey)

cuprohastes:

scotsdragon:

hotcommunist:

veganvenom:

This graffiti appeared overnight at 5 different job centres in Birmingham.

It’s referencing the increasingly harsh benefit sanctions in the UK which are punishing disabled people in particular.

Claimants who cannot work due to severe disabilities or chronic illnesses are being categorised as “fit to work” in order to meet targets and are not being given enough money to survive.

The majority of people who legally challenge their benefits sanctions or ‘fit to work’ decision have them overturned, but only after months without the money they need.

Estimates generally put the number of people who have died in the last few years directly due to benefit sanctions in the thousands. These include people who have died of starvation, exposure, because they couldn’t afford electricity to keep their insulin cold, or because they couldn’t afford treatment, among other things.

The DWP has even sent letters to people declaring them fit to work when in fact they have already died from their illness.

Fuck the DWP and job centres.

Good job, whoever painted these!

how broken this murderous system can be summed up very neatly:

an NHS doctor with access to comprehensive medical records of every major diagnosis and every treatment you’ve ever had can examine you, in private, in as much comfort as is possible in your condition, and categorically declare you “unfit for work”. they sign you off work and give you a certificate to prove how sick you are.

then the dwp forces you to be assessed by their privately contracted company, where you have to take all your own medical info – a lot that isn’t accessible to you. before your appointment you wait in a grey room without windows or even waiting room magazines. their assessor – not a doctor a lot of the time – rushes your appointment, looks at where a doctor has signed you off, and clicks a button that says “fit for work”. you’re a number in a system designed to trip you at every turn.

make no mistake, this is state sanctioned murder, but because you diy it – by dying of starvation or exposure or suicide – it’s not their fault, and the nauseating apathy of the press just makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

There is an ocean of blood on their hands, and it is long past time for them to be held accountable for that.

I worked for the DWP on their phone board for the old, now gone JSA – Job Seekers Allowance. We’d put a lot of work into making sure that everyone who was entitled got their benefits – back when being entitled to benefits wasn’t a Kafka-esque circus of insanity.

Then I developed severe sleep problems that caused me to fall asleep while talking to people while working for the DWP, and went onto ESA (Employment Support allowance:Medical benefits).

I was declared 100% fit for work even though I was being seen in a building where other DWP staff would have confirmed they would catch me passing out.

That was overturned… and I was immediately re-assessed, and the findings of a judge and a medical examiner, my medical history, and wok history thrown out by someone who had no medical experience, but had a set of tick boxes they’d been told to put ‘0′ in where 0 is a rating of ‘No problems’.

The second time I went to adjudication, I was asked if I’d taken the bus. this apparently was enough to persuade everyone there was no problem.

The NHS did not agree, but they were not consulted.