Every year International Day for People with Disabilities (December 3) starts a week of celebration of the lives of disabled people. It is an appropriate time to remind this country of the appalling difficulties facing many of those disabled people living in the United Kingdom, especially regarding the swingeing cuts to independent living support.
The Black Triangle Campaign in Scotland protests against any unfair use of the work capability assessment (WCA) process to attack disabled people’s benefits. In Wales, Disabled People Against Cuts called for Dec 3 to be a day of remembrance: they claim 73 people a week are dying or committing suicide, as a result of losing their benefit lifelines.
This is horrific, if true.
The WCA is fatally flawed, and we argued this with the previous government to no avail. The supposed medical assessment is based on a nonsensical concept of ‘fitness for work’.
Now, evidence seems to show that more and more disabled people are falling into despair as support essential to their very lives is being removed.
We need hard evidence now, and to assess it.
Daily media reports of the abuse of disabled people, the failures in social healthcare, and elder-abuse cause widespread worry and fear. The adoption of the black triangle symbol by disabled protesters is chilling, but understandable, when these threats and cuts are allied to the view that ‘disabled people’s lives are not worth living’ or supporting.
Increasingly, this appears to be an all-out assault on disabled people, leading more to think that assisted dying may be the only answer to their desperation: is this really the society that we want to live in?
Signed
Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, OBE
Baroness Jane Campbell of Surbiton, DBE
Dr Phil Friend, OBE