The money six-stone Stephen Smith was unfairly denied in benefits will now be used to pay for his funeral, because the 64-year-old died only a few months after winning a lengthy battle with the Department of Work and Pensions after staff considered he was fit for work, despite being severely ill, they still denied him his benefits.
After being wrongly turned down and told he needed to look for work, he was forced to sign on every week, even though he could hardly walk, and while in hospital being treated for pneumonia, the gaunt, six stone Stephen Smith discharged himself from hospital to attend a tribunal to reverse the DWP’s judgment of him.
But after Stephen Smith’s case made the headlines, the DWP apologised and agreed that they would issue him with a back payment of more than £4,000, these were the benefits he should have got, and in February ITV Granada Reports raised his situation with Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Amber Rudd, who requested an inquiry into what went wrong in Mr Smith’s case, calling it ‘very upsetting’.
The consequences of that investigation haven’t been made known, and it’s not explicit if any modifications have been made as a consequence of his situation, but in a cruel twist of fate, that money he was wrongly denied will now be used to pay for his funeral, which was held at Anfield Crematorium on Friday 3 May.
Stephen Smith was supported in his fight for benefits by volunteers at the CASA Community Centre in Liverpool, and it’s evident the distress he went through in attempting to get the benefits he required will not have helped his deteriorating health, and it’s with no uncertainty that his treatment from the DWP was a contributory factor to his health getting worse, and if they’d heeded warnings from his doctor, who said that if he was found to be fit for work, it would lead to a more grave decline in his health.
That money that the DWP finally paid back to him, he will never get an opportunity to spend it, and in a wicked statement, made by the Department of Work and Pensions, they said that their thoughts were with Stephen Smith’s family and friends and that they were committed to ensuring that people with health conditions get the assistance they’re entitled to, try telling that to Stephen Smith, oops, they can’t, he’s dead!
Remember this story, remember this man when you next vote for the Tories. Don’t be sheep, demand change because it now proves that both the main parties don’t give a crap, only when they want your vote do they give a crapola.
People need to be voting with their brains and their hearts. Don’t just vote for a party because you’ve always voted for them, because let’s face it, when has any MP had to suffer like this man had to?
The DWP most certainly hastened the rate of Stephen Smith’s death and they should be held liable for this because they clearly didn’t take any notice of what Stephen Smith’s own doctor had said. He was Mr Smith’s doctor and knew all the effects of his health, and what the added strain from the DWP would have on him.
But they used their own care professionals, whatever that is, and after an hour or so of seeing Stephen Smith, they concluded that he was fit for work. Why don’t the DWP just call it euthanasia for the sick and needy?
They should be ashamed of themselves, that means all parties for not standing up and demanding that there are variations in the system, since now it’s been established so many times that these DWP medicals are crippling to the well-being of the claimants, and then when they are proven wrong, they get some footman to stand up in parliament to atone for them, which hasn’t done this man any good at all.
