Examination of witnesses (Questions 180 - 187)
WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH 1998
MRS LYNNE
MALEKMIAN, MRS
LESLEY BURTON
and MR JAMES
MCDONALD
180. Did you get a written apology from the Benefits
Office?
(Mrs Malekmian) No. There has never been an apology.
181. No explanation?
(Mrs Malekmian) Or an explanation, no. When I
asked "Surely you admit an error has been made", they
said: "As far as we are concerned we acted correctly on our
own instructions".
182. On the phone?
(Mrs Malekmian) I did ring up the Benefits Agency
when my book was snatched at the post office and I was told: "Well,
why do you not take the complaint up with Post Office Counters."
I said "I am not taking a complaint out against an employee
who is just following instructions".
Chairman
183. Jim McDonald, why do you not share with us your
experience, tell us what your story is?
(Mr McDonald) Right. I first got involved in this
in November last year and how I feel I got involved was I was
driving a Motability Car and it was a Metro. It was getting to
the stage where I was finding it difficult to get out of it. It
is a small car and has high sills so I was having difficulty getting
out. I approached Motability in September and asked them for an
upgrade. One of the things they asked for was a copy of my award
notice. I could not find one, I knew it was somewhere. I phoned
Blackpool and I said "Can I have a copy of my award notice,
I am upgrading? I know I have got DLA for life", to which
a snippy little female said "No, you have not". I said
"I have" and she said "No, you have not, nobody
has got it for life".
184. Nobody has got it for life?
(Mr McDonald) No. She said "I will send you
a letter". Two days later I got a letter saying they were
doing a Benefit Integrity Project and somebody would come to visit
me on a certain date at a certain time, which he did not because
he was two hours' late. He sat there and went through a form with
me. I said "What is this about?" I phoned up and said
"Am I getting reassessed?" "No, we just want to
make sure you are getting what you are entitled to".
185. You had heard nothing about this project?
(Mr McDonald) Nothing at all. I said "Are
you sure I am not getting reassessed because of my phone call
last week?" "No, sir, it is just a wee review we are
doing to make sure everybody is getting what they are entitled
to and nothing else". I said "fine". A gentleman
came out and I asked him the same thing: "No, we are just
doing it as a review, no benefits are getting cut, you are not
being reassessed". Two or three weeks later I got a letter
from the DLA saying they were not happy with some of the answers
and a doctor was coming to see me. On a certain day this doctor
appeared and he was with me for about 20 minutes. I had never
seen him before in my life, I do not know who he was. He went
away. I told him about the disability. I heard nothing for three
weeks then a letter came through. I was on the higher rate mobility
and higher rate care and they took the lot off me saying that
I did not meet the criteria of either. I had been on the mobility
component since 1975 when I was on the Invacar scheme, the blue
buggies. The Government at the time approached us and said "we
now realise they are pretty dangerous, if we give you £10
a week to help your mobility you can have it for life because
you are not getting any better and we accept that". I said
"fine, no problem". As far as I was concerned that was
a Government statement, fine. So in 1988 I was struck down by
pneumonia and they could not understand what the problem was.
I was waking up with headaches and such like. It took the doctors
two years to diagnose I have got a condition now which is type
two respiratory failure and it is called sleep apnoea. What it
basically means is that if I go for a sleep or a nap I stop breathing
or I do not breathe deep enough and the carbon dioxide levels
build up in my blood and that leads to severe headaches, loss
of co-ordination, hallucinations can come into it. I now have
a ventilator that I use at night. If I am tired and want to go
for a wee nap I have got to put this machine on. I had that for
two years. After two years the doctors were getting worried because
the blood gases were not coming up high enough so they put me
on to oxygen. When I first started getting the ventilator I applied
for DLA in 1992/93 and I was awarded the middle rate because it
was purely on night time care. If the alarm goes off my wife has
to dunt me, shake me, wake me up. She has got to do that two or
three times a night. When they put me on to oxygen it was at the
same time my review was up because it was only for a set period
then. I filled the form in again stating that I was now on oxygen.
I got a letter back from the DLA saying "because you are
now on oxygen we are awarding you the higher rate and it is for
life and it is backdated". I did not ask for that, I just
filled it in to get the same rate. That is where I was. What we
use it for is mobility. I use it for a car. I was out of work
for four years and I managed to secure employment, supported employment
via Remploy, it is not very well paid and the hours are long,
with Strathclyde Police in the police office, doing shifts. When
they took the car off me my job was in jeopardy and I got a testament
from my boss saying "if he loses his benefits and if he has
no car and cannot get to work then I will have to let him go."
The Care Allowance was used to supplement my income and help me
have a better life. They took it away. It was devastating, I was
gutted. My wife is under a lot of stress. She has had a threatened
miscarriage twice with the stress and strain. She is off of work
at the moment under doctor's orders. Two weeks ago we got a phone
call from our local MP, John McFall, stating that he had managed
to secure my mobility component back and I would be hearing from
the DSS. I got a letter from the DSS the following morning stating
that the Secretary of State had intervened on my behalf asking
them to investigate my claim to discover that I was on the Invacar
Scheme and that the mobility component of my claim should have
been exempt because that was awarded, the Government legislation
said that should not be touched. My feeling is that the DSS are
not doing any research into the claimants. They are taking it
on face value. I do not know what my colleagues think but people
who are disabled sometimes try not to accept their disability,
they try to put on a brave face.
186. Minimise it.
(Mr McDonald) They do not want it to affect their
life. My consultant was not consulted regarding the medical evidence
and I told him. My GPs were not consulted, I spoke to two of them
and they said "Nobody has come here". They were outraged
about it. As a result I have managed to keep my job at the moment
because I have got the car back but I am in the process of losing
my house because I am on a low paid job and this money was used,
my wages covered the mortgage—just—but because I have
now lost the DLA some of that money has to be used for food, heating,
lighting, things like that. I have come down here at the request
of other parties to tell you my story which I have done and my
recommendation is that although I believe it is a good idea in
principle because there are a lot of people out there on benefits
who probably deserved them at the time but have got better, I
think they are targeting the wrong people. I think they went for
the top disabled because they get the most money, "let us
take it off them first". They should check the incapacity,
check the ones who have it for a limited time to see if they have
improved. It may well be those people have improved, they have
got better, but the ones who are on it for life, as I have got
it on record, we are the ones who met the criteria at one point,
if they have not changed the criteria, our condition has not improved,
it has not got worse then frankly I am at a loss to understand
it.
187. Your recommendation, like Lynne and Lesley's, is
that this whole project needs to be suspended.
(Mr McDonald) It does. I have had one review and
the review has been knocked back. I have done a second one giving
medical evidence to see what they can do about it.
Chairman: Alas we have run a wee bit over time and
I am sorry because I know particularly Jim, and no doubt Lesley
and Lynne, have gone out of their way to come and spend some time
with us but really we should stop at one o'clock. Can I say to
all three of you that these three powerful statements will be
very carefully studied as part of the case history and form an
integral part of the work you are doing in this report. I am really
very, very grateful. I am pleased you have taken a great deal
of time and trouble. We do pay travel expenses if that is any
consolation. Thank you all very, very much for coming and we will
take very carefully what you have said to us very much to heart
in the course of producing the report which hopefully will make
it easier for others and prevent others from getting into the
kinds of situations, the intolerable situations, that you have
described to us this morning. Thank you very much for coming.
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