Thursday 26 March 2009

Today I rang the DLA department to discuss the reasons for Graces allowance being dropped to middle rate.

They feel that she doesn't need anymore care at night than a normal child and no other points (even though we wrote 3 A4 size pages) had been raised.

Criteria

Grace can be toileted before we go to bed, and a drink be left at her bedside which is ample for her throughout the night. If she has any other toilet issues then incontinence provisions should be made. Grace can make her own way to the toilet and she is of sound mind. Even though we did not apply for mobility they have also decided that she does not qualify for this either because it is reviewed without our input at the same time as the DLA request, so no updated paperwork was sent in for them to peruse over. The original paperwork says that she can possibly walk 150-200 yards on a good day at a slow pace, however once she gets that far, if we had no wheelchair, we would be stuck there, I also pointed out to the lady 'Yvonne' that I spoke to, that she should imagine taking her child to Alton towers for the day, and after 10 minutes her child said 'that's it I just can't walk anymore and I'm really out of breath,so much so that it hurts'... would she then carry an 8 year old around all day? and quite a heavy weighing child (steroids)? and then that child would spend the day concentrating on breathing at a reasonable rate and staring at a parents shoulder instead of taking in scenery and enjoying the surroundings and partaking in the day out if not for a wheelchair.

Still those issues are not the criteria required. They did say, however, that the council in our area are totally responsible for the blue badge decision, providing we meet their criteria and it varies from area to area.

The council have sent out forms for us to apply and we have returned them and awaiting the outcome, but they did say that their criteria is of the same value as the DLA office............

So somewhere along the lines of all this b**lsh*t does anyone feel that we are entitled to any of the benefits or disabled badge? They have truly convinced me its not worth bothering now because they are absolutely right, we are not entitled to anything more than we are receiving and Grace can have a wheelchair to get about with absolutely no need for a disabled badge.

Incidentally my brother in law gets a disabled badge for his hip replacement, he was in extreme discomfort before he had his operation, but now he is fine and he still has a disabled badge. That's great and good luck to him, but the mentality of the decisions they make is ridiculous.

Well that's my gripe for today,I'm almost certain that both the appeal before a tribunal and the disabled badge won't make one iota of difference now, but do I need to go to the press to just shame them into re thinking their criteria?

1 comment:

suzie said...

Hunni,

If I was to write exactly how I feel about this ridiculous decision I would have to swear.....a lot.

I think you should go to the press, it's wrong, very wrong and they should be ashamed of themselves.

I'll go now before I rant, good luck and if there's anything I can do to help please let me know.

Loads of love always.
x x x