Council Cretins (The Endless Saga)

Isn't it utterly absurd how we as a disabled community accept the punitive ways our lives are measured by those in authority?

I had a visit from a Social Worker today under the auspices of carrying out an updated assessment on me. What basically transpires is that your life is quantified and judged in terms of the time it takes you to do daily tasks. So, picture the scene, some stranger comes into your home and asks you in terms of hours it takes you to get up, go on the toilet, get washed and dressed etc... Where's the dignity in that? How on earth is that even conceivably a morally sound and inoffensive way of evaluating the amount of support a disabled person needs? The dubious ‘Time & Motion’ data is then evaluated and discussed amongst a faceless band of bureaucrats who decide how much money you're allowed, how much you'll need to contribute and how many hours support you've been allocated.

The entire process is upside down and ludicrous. For example, you can have a carer to help you get up in a morning but if you need a wheelchair to get around, you're not allowed to use your budget to service, repair and maintain that chair. So they'll have no problem with helping you with personal care but if your chair's knackered, you'll have to stay in bed until you're able to fund the repairs. How you’re able to meet your social care needs is inexplicable under those circumstances...

Absolute bollocks!

Here's another one. You aren't allowed to use the money for general housekeeping tasks like cleaning and tidying etc, but you can use it if you need your carers to do cooking, laundry etc... Say what? So, your home can be a fucking pigsty but at least you'll be fed and have clean clothes on.

Inadvertently, although in my view stupidly, I casually mentioned that my Mum has some assistance with cleaning one day a week from one of my carers. The Social Worker mentioned that she'd have to check with her superiors as to whether that was allowed or not. My Mum has arthritis in multiple joints, a hip replacement, unsteady walking, scoliosis, asthma and next year she'll be 80. ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME!!! This is someone who has had ZERO help and support for 43 years. Looking after me, working till all hours, only one wage coming in, nobody offering any assistance whatsoever!

Get the fuck outta here... Seriously?!?!

The icing on the cake is that they have the temerity to deduct money from your Disability Living Allowance to enforce a nonsensical 'contribution' rule which means they take money from one pot to put it into another pot which is ring-fenced. So you lose money for them to give you money and the money you lose is basically swallowed up by your budget, but you have no say in how that portion of cash is spent. Rather than deduct your contribution from their initial allowance, they make sure you are putting money into the account. Under scrutiny this is just an exercise in moving digital money about on a computer screen. Plus, in my Mum's case, it's the equivalent of the Council taking money off you for fulfilling the rest of my weekly care. Working but losing money. Are there any other occupations that operate that way? Not to my knowledge...

Then you get the fun questions like, "Has your disability got any better?" Really??? Yeah, I’m hoping to walk by Christmas, then I might join a dance troupe the following year and audition for Britain’s Got Talent!

Girl bye...!!!

These people are round the bloody bend and are nothing more than worker ants in a fatalistic feudal style colony. It’s nothing short of a dark humoured dystopian nightmare conceived by Kafka. Who the hell created this system of abject farcical lunacy?

The Tories and their baby monster called Austerity really have enacted some neverending level of Twilight Zone shit...and disabled people are paying the biggest price!!!