Man starved to death after benfits cut
 

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/110...fits_were_cut/

2nd one to die this week that i know of. as i said before what cameron is doing is no different than h hitler trying to kill of the weak and the poor.

Sorry smeagol,but I don't think you can blame this solely on Cameron.Where were his carers,family etc?:hugesmile:

They were busy invading Poland.

Well they should be ashamed of themselves:hugesmile:,surely though someone should have picked up on this,I find it a bit strange.

Did you not read the article?

They sent him £250 when they found out he had lost his benefits but they only found out a few weeks before he passed. The guy suffered with so many personal, mental health conditions that he had already become majorly ill.

Not everyone can depend on mammy and daddy and neither expect to also not everyones parents can afford to pay their own and someone elses rent.

Bang On Right
DL85

Poor guy.

ATOS are absolutely pathetic as are the DWP, they never ever contact claimants own doctors that have been dealing with them and treating their illnesses for years and who would know without a doubt whether their own patients were capable for work or not, instead opting to go with their own staff opinion's when most of the time these people doing the medicals aren't even proper fully qualified doctors, even after all these inquests and enquiries into them why the hell are they still insisting on using them?

I heard on the grapevine that ATOS has been scrapped, I'll look for a link.

I see this at the bottom of that article

If that's the case though and another company is brought in it will just be the exact same in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they just renamed ATOS to something else.

If your own doctors states that you are unfit to work then that should be the end of it IMO.

That's the biggest problem with the powers that be. cameron and co is they seem to think people have support. because they did. when that's not the case, its the same with the age rulues he is enforcing for the young.
The people who have no one or family who cant help will be most effected. which is the very people who need help the most.

I lay part of the blame for these sad incidents at the door of the Govt.
When David Cameron appointed as work and pensions secretary a failed, heartless and arrogant individual as Ian Duncan Smith it is only to be expected.

Ian Duncan Smith dismisses any warnings from carers and organisations as simply not the case and he goes on pursuing relentlessly his really heartless and cowardly attack on the weakest,poorest and most vulnerable in society.
Especially the genuinely sick and disabled too then these incidents will keep happening.

How and why this heartless and poorest excuse for a politician remains to have any power at all over peoples lives and incomes is totally beyond me.

It is different and its a rather silly and hysterical comparison

No need to be calling it a dumb comment because it doesn't suit you,I'm not saying it's not a terrible thing to happen ,of course it is,but he was obviously failed by more people than Cameron which is what the poster suggested and nothing to do with Hitler,I don't even know if he had parents but if he did why weren't they looking after him or making sure he was cared for,was he homeless?where did he live?

I agree it is very easy to lay the blame at the door of the government, yes it was awful that his benefits were reduced, but given he was such a vulnerable adult was sending him 250.00 as a way of helping him anywhere near enough? why didn't someone intervene on his behalf, why were his family not checking on him to see if he was okay on a weekly basis, though he needed cash he probably needed a bit of proper care more? Why was he on his own if he had all these conditions?

My thoughts exactly Cherie.:hugesmile:

it's a pass the buck world now, somehow the government are supposed to play all roles in peoples lives via cash payouts.

this man was living independently, but it seems he had no care plan in place.
atos is is clearly flawed, if he had a care worker, im sure they would of helped his situation.
he would give the cash away that his family would give him, if they kept a closer eye on him maybe they could of helped him.

very sad all round.

Care in the community?...
I hope ATOS are on their way out, along with this government ..good riddance

not silly it all. its all designed to kill of the poor and needy.

its a shame people are so blind as to not see what is going on outside thir own windows.

The guy has the right to live on his own with the means provided for him.
no compassion there just assume everybody has a family with tons of cash. cameron fan i guess

It is the far too severe reforms of the welfare and benefits changes that are now for the first time leaving claimants with nothing at all for weeks as it gets sorted out.
Almost every week,organisations there to help, who have become fewer since this Govts cutbacks too, are warning of these very things happening because the reforms are too hurried and not planned properly.

I myself in the company I work in at present as to Law,have come across people left with nothing,yet still the bills are coming in and rents have to be paid.
I have learned of people being told they are too fit for ESA but not fit enough for Jobseekers allowance.
Meanwhile left with no income until it gets sorted.

Also, some people just get so depressed with it all they just drift away from society and then we get tragedies like the one highlighted in this thread.
Often families don't know their loved ones are even in this fix.

The only people who brought in these reforms are this pathetic excuse for a Govt, with severe and ridiculous testing for fitnss as to work too.
This Govt has been told time and time again by loads of organisations and those caring for people with problems, that massive, and more to the point, unfair and unjust distress is being caused.
They just arrogantly and heartlessly dismiss it and press on regardless.

When the dust settles on these benefit reforms and history judges this Govt as to them,it will be seen as one of the most unjust and heartless acts ever brought into existence.
I am appalled at some of the cases I have come across,they read like nightmares a great many of them.

I really cannot wait for this bunch of arrogant,pompous incompetents to get turfed out in 2015, the alternative may not look a great deal attractive at times but at least they will hopefully have and bring back some compassion to their policies,unlike the parties in this coalition.

I completely agree with this - plus people being pushed down into "their place" for decades so they just lie down and accept what's happening to them mostly peacefully.

"Respect" for authority, fear of consequences, so strong that they over-ride basic survival instinct. If you are genuinely screwed - if you are FACING DEATH - drop off the radar and bloody well TAKE what you want from a society that doesn't care about you. The worst that will happen is prison or death - and you're facing the latter anyway.

he can't have been that hungry, why didn't he try eating his own limbs? that's what a truly desperate man would have done.

It's typical blaming the victim for circumstances out of their control like a lot of Tories like to do.

Something really does need to be done about ATOS though, it's becoming brutal and from the times I've been in the past only gets worse and worse.

You completely missed my point Smeagy. I never said he didn't have the right to live on his own, and neither did I say the family should have provided cash, in fact I said quite the opposite in that where was their "support" for him (not cash based), you do not die from hunger in a week or a month, why were they not seeing him and helping him by visiting and knowing what state he was in? They sent 250.00 so they did help him out financially but given his phobia of food that didn't help as they already acknowledge in the article that he gave money away.


and no I am not a Cameron Fan! The family cannot put all blame onto the Government,(and I agree Atos are a hideous organisation) but the family are also at fault as well for not keeping a closer eye on their son/brother who they concede was vulnerable.

The family weren't aware of the deterioration until it was too late it was the extra stress that maybe exacerbated his existing phobias around food? Prior to the ATOS decision his BMI was only 14.1....
The communication between ATOS and healthcare professionals is what is killing people.

So you don't think his family have any responsibility towards him at all? care is all down to the state?

Well I don't know the timescales involved, or how far apart they lived so can't really say cherie.
He had been living independently successfully since 2006, that suggests to me they maybe didn't feel that he was at such an increased risk.

Well I think it is safe to say they had very little involvement for at least 4 months, as he died for months after his benefits stopped. They acknowledge that he "gave money away" so who is to say if he was still receiving full benefit he wouldn't have given it all away at any rate. They must be live fairly close as

His family are meeting Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood next Friday to try to find out why he was declared fit for work. Ms Wood said they may consider legal proceedings.

sorry to be cynical but it now looks like they are looking for compensation for his death when the "food phobia" he had probably contributed more than the lack of benefit. It seems sending him 250 quid absolves them of all famililial responsibility.

I repeat that whilst ATOS should never had insisted he was fit for work, his family had alot more insight into his problems and should have given him a bit more non financial support.

They must live close as they're visiting with his local MP?
lots of people have limited involvement for that timescale they may have had contact via telephone ...
I agree with the court action and think it's important if only to highlight the fact ATOS failed to take into consideration the opinion of his doctor.

It's a terrible thing to have happened in one of the richest countries in the world. However, the comparison to Hitler is rather a stupid one.

Are you talking about Hitler here or the the man in the article?

MP s are contactable by phone too ! Making the time to visit the MP but no time or too far too visit their relative says so much to me :tongue:

Yes, it says they have to discuss failings within ATOS face to face. :tongue:

You don't know enough about this family to be making such comments really though do you. All the info we have is his mother is a single parent and he has a sister, that's it.

You don't know what life they lead, all we do know though is his benefits were stopped when they 100% should not have been. He has been failed by the system and unfortunately ended up dead.

Poor guy.

Since the man was 44 years old then the parents might be too elderly, frail, have illnesses of their own. Without knowing the details or the families circumstances then it's pretty unfair to jump to conclusions and it also only states the family are meeting the MP it doesn't say where, the MP could be visiting them.

Money isn't even the issue, the fact that the government, the DWP and this ATOS bunch are continuously failing the sick and vulnerable in this country is the big problem here.

How can you say money isn't an issue when the headline states he died due to loss of benefits? The press are making it into an issue about money when there really is so much more to this story, his food phobia being one of the glaringly obvious ones to me.

Because benefits don't always have to mean money and nothing else Cherie, I said that because this is what you posted earlier in the thread..

Having his benefits stopped never just meant he had no cash, it also stopped his housing benefits and if he had still been receiving DLA then the social work department knowing he was vulnerable could have possibly sent home carers out to make sure he was safe, had things in to eat and if they would have seen the weight he was and reported it I'm pretty sure they could have got him signed into a hospital.

yes I agree with all that Josy, but in this day you just can't expect the agencies to get it right, if you have a vulnerable or aged adult in your family you have to get stuck in to see that what should be happening is, there are so many box tickers in jobs with no ability to see beyond what they see as their job. I see alot of it in the School I work in, if parents are lax and don't chase things up the child can miss out on alot of help that is available to them. I wouldn't trust any agency to sort anything out, sad but true these days.