A disabled man who lost both legs and four fingers to diabetes has been asked to prove he is unable to work by the Department of Work and Pensions.
9:57AM BST 17 Aug 2012
Chris Cann who has been told he has to prove he is disabled Photo: Newsteam
A disabled man has been asked to prove he is unable to work by the Department of Work and Pensions despite having both legs amputated due to diabetes.
Chris Cann, 57, was left wheelchair bound after losing both legs and four fingers to diabetes.
Despite being housebound, the widower has been ordered to attend an assessment centre to prove he is too disabled to work or his £600-a-month benefits will be stopped.
Chris, who developed diabetes six years ago, started claiming disability allowance in 2008 – before he had his legs amputated.
Two years ago he had his right leg amputated below the knee and in January this year Chris had surgery again to have his left leg removed as well as four fingers on his right hand.
This week Chris received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions ordering him to undergo medical tests to prove he should receive the new Employment and Support Allowance.
He said: “It is a waste of time. Four years ago I was unfit to work and my health has deteriorated a lot since then. Even if I could get down there they will take one look at me and say I am unfit for work.
“I am very obviously disabled so I don’t see what tests they have to do.
“I am housebound and on my own. They expect me to get a taxi which will cost me £10 each way but I can’t really do that without help.
“I can’t even get upstairs to turn the heating on so how do they expect me to go to all these places?”
Chris, who lost his wife of 11 years Emma earlier this month, was forced to give up his job as a catering manager in 2008 after being diagnosed with diabetes.
He underwent an assessment which ruled he was too disabled to work and he began receiving benefits.
But after new rules were introduced to tighten up the benefits system he has been told to prove he cannot work under the DWP’s Work Capability Assessment measures.
A DWP spokesman said: “The old system simply wrote too many people off without looking at what they were able to do.
“If someone can no longer do the job they used to do, the Work Capability Assessment looks at what other kinds of work they may be able to do.”
6 Responses
Makes you ashamed of what this country has become and the general public sits back and does nothing,devided ,conquerd and gutless .
Get Chris Cann on Breakfast news TV ,Lorraine,This Morning,The One Show ,The Evening and Late New and Newsnight,let him show how cruel this country has become due to political propaganda and media fed bull.Let the people know that they will be next if they don`t stop the wealthy faciests that fund their criminal cronies to get them in power.
Atos just bleats it is trying to meet its contractual obligations so that proves their contract does not any bearing on actual health status but on political figures grasped from the air .People should remeber if they fall ill or end up with no job in the future they won`t get a cent despite paying in all their lives.Chris worked most of his and paid in and now he gets this nasty treatment .
If you read this Chris God Bless you mate and I hope the rotten sods that are doing this end up in jail for acts against Humanity for 30 yrs at least with no remission and there cell mate is a armless master kick boxer that hates their guts..
It would be nice to think they would see that you are not fit for work but after seeing those documentaries they said as long as you have a working finger you can work! I would love to know who the hell would actually employ you? I’d have thought their H&S advisor’s would consider you a liability, but this Government live in a bubble and are too stupid to see that!
Good luck with your assessment make sure you tell them the difficulties in getting there preferably in writing so you can use it in your appeal if you don’t manage to get there and they stop your money! + copy all forms and letters you send them so you can refer to them next time which usually happens several weeks after you win your appeal, if you don’t get a sensible outcome the first time
What they mean is find a scabby job on workfare earning millions for some tossing corporation who are being paid taxpayers money to employ you and you are getting the same benefits you used to get but have to work for free. That is what those wankers at the DWP actually mean, instead of cannon fodder you are workfare fodder.
When you first look at this story you instantly think ‘how can they’. But read on and you have to appreciate that at 57, a disabled person is going to find it much harder to gain employment anyway. I am partially sighted and hearing impaired and have a heart pacemaker. I am 53, and even I have struggled to get employment. If I was like this poor chap, I would be much worse. But, it also does have to be remembered that sometimes people are put on benefits and they do not see anyone or receive any kind of assement. People’s conditions can change, they might get better or, as in this case, they get worse, but how is the DWP to really know without seeing people. I know that many are unhappy at the change from Incapacity Benefit, to the new Employment and Support allowance with is ephasis on what disabled claimant CAN do rather than what they cannot. But, as long as the assessments are carried out FAIRLY and properly, is it not right that disabled people she at least have a chance of doing a job that they might be able to do if they have the support they may need. The thing is, no one should ever loose benfits UNTIL they are successfully in a job and are happy that they can do that job.
but whot jobs you omit the jobs we can do only that they can well whot job who would employ us nobody why dont you just say you dont want nobody claiming any benefits as the bankers have put us in this hole and now you wanr us gone that just about sums it up mps whot mps they allowed this to happen jeff3
Anything but Britain’s Finest Hour the Shabby and Slavish Modern Times
A Nation of Sheep and Slavery Collaborators summons up the General Public
of the UK
To say that the UK has gone Downhill since Day Zero 1933 ( May 11th 2010 )
is an Understatement
Tax Breaks for Millionaires and Politicians Claim on Expenses such is
” Democratic ” Hellhole UK of 2012
Without Political & Economic Revolution Changing the System of Government
as well as those who are in the Government of the United Kingdom it is only
More Likely to go to Pot
Circuses without Bread For the Masses and Power and Obscene Wealth for
the Elite
Billions to be Slashed from Welfare One Hears but Yet Billions Wasted upon
Warfare
My Sympathy is For the Under Dog Not the Oppressor