Readers respond to the tragic death of Stephen Smith, a man with debilitating illnesses deemed fit for work by the DWP
Wed 24 Apr 2019 18.14 BST
Last modified on Wed 24 Apr 2019 19.51 BST
Frances Ryan asks “when do we start to care” about “the mass abuse by the state towards its disabled and sick citizens” (Stephen Smith has died. The cruelty of the system lives on, 23 April)? Research by Glasgow University Media Unit compared articles about people with disabilities in selected newspapers in 2004-5 and in 2010-11. Given the increased use of pejorative words and emphasis on “cheats”, it was not surprising that the later focus groups estimated benefit fraud at between 10% and 70%. Even those with concerns about the benefit system find it difficult to comprehend that a government department could behave outside the realm of natural justice.
Accompanying a friend in her 60s with serious mental illness and chronic physical disabilities, who had been summoned to the jobcentre by a standard letter with no reason given for the interview, but threatening sanctions if she did not attend, it was shocking to hear the interviewer’s accusation of potential fraud in the year 2014-15 when my friend became too ill to work and was advised to claim ESA (employment and support allowance). No evidence was produced from the DWP’s records to support this accusation. The interviewer agreed her earnings for that year were just over £1,000 but said that unless she could provide a document proving that she did not claim ESA before she stopped work, she could be sanctioned or have to repay the benefits for that year. A lawyer friend, unfamiliar with the DWP, expressed disbelief. Once we decide that some people in our society are not worthy of human dignity and respect, our government can do no end of bad things, and get away with it.
Jean Goodrick
Cambridge
• Hundreds of examples like Stephen Smith (Man with debilitating illnesses deemed fit to work by DWP dies, 22 April) are known to food-bank volunteers, eg a man of 64, discharged from hospital in Bradford after treatment for malnutrition, still terribly thin, taken to jobcentre in wheelchair. No help, lives alone and attends food bank in wheelchair pushed by a friend. It’s entirely due to food banks and friends that there are fewer scandals. Surely DWP staff should telephone a hospital? They never seem to, nor accept GPs’ notes. If a hospital could support the claimant as being unfit for work, then why is any “assessment” needed? Money would be saved in administration. The objective seems not to be efficiency but cruelty.
Bob Holland
Keighley, West Yorkshire
• Frances Ryan is right to ask where is the national outcry about this cruel and callous system. I recently spoke to a lady who had just lost her son and whom I had last seen frantically trying to photocopy documents supporting his appeal. This was subsequently granted but the stress and upset she and her son had to go through was unconscionable and contributed, I should imagine, in no little way to his death.
These desperate men and women are placed in the most invidious of situations, not only dealing with desperate health conditions but struggling financially while trying to answer inane and vacuous questions about their health.
Judith Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
• Frances Ryan, on the sad death of Stephen Smith, poses a very valid question: where is the public outrage? There are an increasing number of issues such as the Windrush scandal, education funding shortfalls, police forces unable to investigate crimes due to lack of resources, hospital waiting times, severe reductions in legal aid. It continues on and on and yet there is no visible public reaction. Are we now so immune to these events that we have come to expect them?
Do many people, myself included, feel disenfranchised by the current election system and uselessness of many MPs that when we do complain nothing happens and we are fobbed off with platitudes?
I fear that this government will continue to plod on like White Walkers marching on Winterfell. Winter is coming but unfortunately in our case it could be Nigel Farage in the European elections.
Gary James
Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/24/benefits-system-set-up-for-cruelty-not-efficiency
