Abusing those with disabilities

Published: 29 September, 2011

• READERS will be aware, through the persistent and well-considered actions of the Campaign Against Care Charges, of the demeaning and sometimes tragic consequences of Camden’s policy of making disabled people pay for personal assistance that they would otherwise not need were they not disabled.

The results of Camden officers and their agents prying into every personal and financial aspect of these people’s lives has been poverty, hardship, self-neglect, injury and even suicide.

Not content with this abuse of an already vulnerable and disadvantaged section of society, your council has, without consultation or publicity, sunk even lower.

Staff are contacting people who receive personal care and telling them that without further notice Camden will put out their package of needs in the form of a contract to a list of care-providing companies and the lowest bidder will take over the contract immediately.

You need to understand the implications of this.

No longer are disabled people treated as people: they become commodities to be traded (on a screen like a stock exchange).

No longer will disabled people within the social care system have the right to privacy, the right to hide or reveal any disabling condition: their every detail will be broadcast to commercial enterprises who have been proved (Southern Cross, Forest Healthcare in charge of Camden’s Ash Court, etcetera) to be more interested in money than people.

No longer will people be able to choose their care provider: they will be bid for like cattle. So much for choice, dignity and respect.

There are few examples of council policy having a direct effect on people’s personal lives but where this happens it must be subject to close scrutiny to ensure that basic human rights are protected.

This ill-thought-out attempt to penalise further disabled residents fails the test of fairness and responsibility and must be scrapped.

To those who might be uncertain of the argument about the need for cuts versus disproportionate suffering, I remind you of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s “Then they came for me”.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW5