Many years ago at school there was a small group of us in what was known as a PHU or ‘partially hearing unit.’ This was a specialist classroom for the deaf and hard of hearing kids. During playtimes and lunchtimes we would go out into the ‘general’ areas – the playground, canteen, etc, and mix with the hearing kids.
One day there was a minor incident in which a deaf kid was teased by a hearing kid. During the next assembly, the elderly head-teacher reprimanded this child, pointing out that ‘bullying is bad enough as it is, but bullying a deaf child is disgraceful.’ I agree with this principle set down many years ago by an educated and well-respected man with an old fashioned sense of right and wrong.
Now fast forward 30 years or so and we see that for once David Cameron is right about moral decay – except not in the way he made out. There are few things more immoral than the way Atos bullies disabled people.
It would make for too long a blog post to catalogue the main abuses committed by Atos against disabled people. Unfair and badly-done assessments. False information recorded. Non-accessible testing centres. All this has been well documented and widely reported.
Now this Atos corporate organisation has stooped yet lower (something which might seem impossible) by bringing out lawyers and trying to shut down parts of sites such as Carer Watch where disabled people and their friends and relatives find refuge to talk about Atos’ very bad behaviour.
Disabled people – the people whose opinion really counts – have little doubt that Atos carries out its business in a manner which is deeply shameful. Bullying is bad enough as it is, but bullying disabled people is disgraceful. It’s not enough for them to devastate our lives; they also want to prevent us from talking about the devastation that they cause!
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13 'assessors/GPs' hired, were sacked for ignoring the effects of illness and deafness, but cameron has decided to ignore that.
I think Cameron is even more culpable than Atos as he has the power to stop it all, but, despite knowing what it is like to have a disabled child, chooses to allow this stress and poverty to be inflicted on disabled people. Danny Alexander is another.
Matching disabled people up with jobs that they can actually do is too much hassle for him, so we get this skip of nastiness instead.
Here's a link for what MM said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/13/atos-doctors-improper-conduct-disability
Here's a response from Carer Watch, explaining how much distress Atos are causing on top of all the distress they cause already:
http://carerwatch.wordpress.com/letter-to-atos-legal-department/
These clowns are trying to shut down disabled websites and carer sites ? UN-believable ! Patronage with an 'edge' indeed.. Even with the knowledge the UK government has waged war on its vulnerable with funding and allowance cuts, this adds an very dangerous precedent in that their 'agents' can effectively close down any criticism online too.
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