To celebrate International Day of Disabled People, on December 3, I spoke to UK-based disabled women about their lives and concerns.
British actor Liz Carr is writing a play. It’s called Assisted Suicide the Musical.
“The right to life and death at the moment is huge. With the current economic climate, NHS cuts, the pressure could be on people to end it, to not be a burden, not to be more trouble than they are worth.
“We have heard about people not being able to cope with the changes to welfare benefits.
“I’ve heard from the mental health community that people are becoming iller and considering killing themselves because of the pressure.
If I can write something comical and thought-provoking at the same time, it can get a lot of attention,” she said.
Carr is one of the UK’s ten million disabled people.
Only half of working-age disabled people are employed compared with nearly 80 per cent of the general population.
Disabled people are twice as likely to have no qualifications, and over a fifth say they often have no control over their daily lives.
The disabled women and their partners I spoke to all feared their position would worsen as cuts to benefits and services began to bite.
Ruth Mills’ wife Sonia has a spinal injury and they need a grant to install a lift in their home in Shrewsbury. Sonia used to use a stairlift, but this is now impossible because of the risk of accident.
Mills works as a self-employed IT consultant and the council means test said the couple would have to contribute over £100,000 before it would pay a penny.
The council admitted that if they were both on benefits they would almost certainly get a grant.
The couple re-mortgaged in 2007 to convert their garage into an accessible downstairs bathroom.
“Our outgoings don’t leave us with that much disposable income at all once the mortgage, credit cards and bills are all paid,” said Mills.
“Sonia is in the situation where she is stuck on the sofa in the lounge when she isn’t in her electric wheelchair, which is causing her an awful lot of discomfort, and risks giving her pressure sores.”
“We aren’t able to properly be together as a married couple too, because she can’t get upstairs.
“Ironically we have a super-king adjustable bed upstairs, that we bought in 2007, that Sonia can no longer use as she can’t get upstairs.”
Deborah Sowerby, a retired community development worker from West Berkshire, said: “The local authority here are saying where someone’s care package is costing more than keeping them in residential home they won’t fund it.”
She said the right to an ordinary life, to live in a street as opposed to a block or an institution, was under threat.
There is also uncertainty about the future of the Independent Living Fund, a government trust which pays disabled people directly to employ their own personal assistants (PAs), due to be closed in 2015.
Sue Elsegood from London uses PAs to help her with everything from dressing to playing power-chair football.
“My PAs are highly skilled. They are trained up by my more experienced PAs for quite a while before they work with me.
“Agency staff are not so well-trained, that’s why I prefer to employ my own,” she said.
All three women believed disabled people were being demonised as a way of justifying the cuts, and Elsegood was concerned this might lead to an increase in hate crime.
“A few weeks ago Ricky Gervais got into a lot of trouble for using the word mong, but people are content for us to be called scroungers and workshy, that’s the way we are being labelled at the moment,” said Carr.
But there are signs that the attacks on services and living standards are bringing the disabled community together in a way not seen since the campaign for the Disability Discrimination Act in the 1990s.
“I think it’s quite exiting. I went to the AGM of DPAC [Disabled People Against Cuts] recently, they are doing amazing things.
“There seem to be lots of pockets of people doing different things, using social media. There have been so many demos against ATOS [the company re-assessing Incapacity Benefit claimants on behalf of the government].
“They’ve been getting themselves in The Guardian and on TV. It’s not just the same few people anymore. A lot of the petty arguments and disagreements are being put aside,” said Carr.
Sowerby believes that social networking has done a lot to break down the isolation felt by many disabled people.
“I’ve never seen so much networking. Facebook is fantastic,” she said.
Both Sowerby and Carr believe the campaigns are enabling disabled people to find common cause with others.
“It’s a challenge to get disabled people together, but the most exciting challenge is to link up all the campaigns, like the demonstration in March, which brought together all different groups,” said Carr.
Sowerby urged non-disabled women to learn more about disability.
“Anyone running anything or doing anything needs to think, where are the disabled people?
“Look and see what people are saying, plug in, find out, speak out – take up the issues, they are everyone’s issues” she said.
Elsegood agreed. “Disability can happen to anyone, so having a society set up to help disabled people will help everyone.”
Find out more
DANmail – e-mail group of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)
Transport for All campaign
Black Triangle campaign
Where’s the Benefit
Office of Disability Issues
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