This is the article in question:
Atos Declares Coma Patients Fit' and Other Disability Related Welfare Urban Myths
And this below is my comment:
So much to debunk in this puff piece, where to start?
"I think we are being led to believe some health professional from ATOS has visited a person in a coma, took one look at them, and said yep, they are fit for work! I mean really?"
>> No-one has suggested that. But it is a fact, not an urban myth, that Atos have declared people fit for work because they didn't turn up for their assessment due to being in a coma or dead. Rather than ridiculing the reports, which are factually correct (no-one is being "led to believe" anything), you could accept that it points to a system which is so rigid, so computer-led, that it gives rise to ridiculous situations like these.
"Atos kills 40 people a week, or whatever it is currently."
>> It doesn't do much for your credibility that you should be so dismissive of the numbers.
This isn't an urban myth either, although it would be if it were written the way you suggest. The reality is that many, too many people die within 6 weeks of being found fit for work by Atos. In this instance, I agree partly with you that *some* people have chosen to summarise it as you have, and this does do a disservice, IMO, to those who fight against this iniquitous system. However, yet again, it points to the implacability and rigidity of a system dealing with vulnerable humans which decides by clicking on this or that key whether someone is fit for work or not.
"It is clear to me it is not the Government nor the right wing media that ensures the language of benefit scroungers has been kept in the public minds but those who claim to be campaigning on behalf of disabled people, because it suits their agenda of victimhood and tries to close the debate of welfare reforms with emotive guilt tripping."
>> It may be clear to you, but you must live in a very sheltered and selective environment if that is the case. You will find that the scrounger rhetoric is in fact firmly embedded both in Hansard and the popular press, seldom a day passes without the Sun or the Mail (or both) telling the great British public at large that "75% of sick people are found fit for work", that "3 out of 4 disabled are faking" and so on. Please don't take my word for it, search the archives of these papers and see for yourself. These numbers aren't made up by the papers, they are passed to them by the DWP. The problem is that these statistics are false ones, based on manipulating the figures. (Please check the site FullFact for the correct ones, I'm not here to do the research you should have done in the first place before creating your piece of pro-Atos propaganda)
That this in turn should cause an increase in hate crime against disabled people is not something which can be categorically proven, of course. People don't get arrested for beating a guy in a wheelchair and say: "the Sun told me to", of course. However, it is a fact that it is rising, I see someone has already told you where to ask for further information, and it would be disingenuous to the extreme to suggest that there is no correlation between the increase in the attacks on the disabled in the papers and the attacks on the disabled in real life.
"The ILF closing and "The extremist groups would like the public to believe this will result in users ending up in residential care (where they are likely of course to be abused) without any evidence that this will be the case."
>> Your tone of derision towards disabled people shows badly in this paragraph, so let's break it down, shall we?
Which "extremist groups" do you refer to? I am not aware that Al-Qaeda has been bombing Atos buildings on behalf of disabled people. Have anti-Atos people in wheelchairs been setting Atos assessment centres on fire? Spread them with manure? Who are these extremist groups?
Do you perhaps mean groups which have been created out of the fear and despair following their Atos assessments? Groups of disabled people sharing the information to try and fight the system (legally!) when that system is already so skewed against them? Disabled people supporting one another when they get their few resources cut off at the whim of a faceless employee? Are these the extremist groups to which you refer? Yes, because nothing is more frightening than someone in a wheelchair or shuffling on 2 sticks, of course.
The users are likely to end up in residential care, that is a fact, and I fail to see how you can claim this as an urban myth. As the funds dry up and the local authorities have to find the money somehow, it is unavoidable that people will not be able to be supported individually in their homes and will instead be looked after collectively, which means residential care. I am at a loss how you can try to deny this.
Will they "of course be abused"? One hopes not, but your pitiful attempt at sarcasm fails in the evidence of the scandals which have emerged in the last few months. If you are not aware of them, I suggest you get out of your bubble and inform yourself. Or maybe you think Winterbourne is more of the "extremist groups" propaganda?
I wondered why anyone apart from IDS would want to try and dismiss the legitimate worries of vulnerable people, and then I read the comments, pointing out that you are in fact an Atos employee (dare I use the word "stooge"?) and at that point, it all becomes quite clear: This so-called article is in fact nothing more than yet another attempt to discredit disabled people at large, their carers, their support groups, and get them further marginalised and ignored.
I hope they pay you more than 30 pieces of silver for writing this. It will cost more than that to cleanse your soul, I fear.
