HOME TRUTHS FOR ATOS.

Atos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My letter to ATOS when I was asked to attend one of their health assessments even though I was NOT in receipt of emploment support allowance.

To whom it may concern.

The doctors at my general practise who know ME and my medical history inside out, saved and prolonged my life by correctly diagnosing my heart problem and advising me to give up my work.

They are still monitoring and managing my condition and are continuing to investigate and treat the added severe arthritis I am suffering in my back and various joints of my body.

I was born and bred into the fishing industry of HARD graft where living constantly on stormy seas, soaked to the skin on a daily basis took its toll on my body, hence the arthritis and with little sleep along with irregular meals was a likely cause of my heart condition.

Treading the streets as a postman in all weathers did not do my health any good either.

With hindsight, if I had picked an easy job such as a TV presenter, DWP worker politician, or even worked for ATOS, I would most likely still be able to carry out the gentle tasks these jobs entail, the main drawback being for the latter two, my conscience would not allow it.  

Any medical staff who works for a company, already publicly shamed and ridiculed, whose purpose is to accept money from an unelected and unscrupulous government for overruling the diagnosis of such honourable doctors, if having signed the “Hippocratic oath” should be struck off, as by working in such an underhanded way they are breaking the very oath they signed.

If any of the staff making these decisions have not signed the said oath, then they should be taking NO part in this enterprise anyway.

To make this clear, I would like to point out that MY doctors, and the doctors at other practises whose diagnosis are being questioned have the health and welfare of their patients at heart and NOT any financial gain nor sympathy for unscrupulous  government ministers whose soul interest is to increase the coffers at the expense of genuine disabled people.

Therefore there is no one at a government paid company qualified to examine me, or even question the opinion of my doctor or others during a short interview where some disgusting decisions have already been made, and most likely in advance of actually seeing the patient.

The money being used to pay such companies comes from the coffers accumulated by the taxpayers which include ME who worked and contributed into these funds during my HARD working life as a commercial fisherman and latterly as a postman, jobs that given the nature of them and my medical condition would have shortened my life had it not been for the professionalism of the medical team at my practise.

It angers me that the very money the government is supposedly trying to protect is being squandered by them on hiring a company who is quite willing to fleece the taxpayers of that money by collecting bonuses for each disabled person they discard, genuine or otherwise, from the government’s benefit system.

MPs have commented on the attempted benefit changes as “An unmitigated disaster of extraordinary proportions” with 140m million pounds of taxpayers’ money being written off, which does not include the money wasted on ATOS.

ATOS was supposed to weed out those who were cheating the system not attack the genuine, some of whom committed suicide while others died as a result of losing their benefits. Deaths caused indirectly by both the government and ATOS.

Adding the amounts of squandered money together with the resulting deaths, it would have been much better and less costly to leave well alone, but then again it would have deprived companies like yours of millions of taxpayers’ money.

Not only do we have unscrupulous ministers involved in this action but an unscrupulous company who has lost all credibility in the eyes of the general public, so I see no reason for any involvement of me by ATOS as they know nothing about me, and would not learn enough about me during a short interview to overrule the CORRECT decision of the doctors at my medical practise.

Nor do I see the logic in filling in a questionnaire or answer questions at a farcical assessment that are mostly irrelevant to my condition and incapacity, or ability to pursue a suitable occupation.

It is my right however to have a credible assessment, which has already been carried out by my own doctors whose only concern is my welfare with no other underhand scheme behind them.

It is only fair to warn you that all correspondence between us might be made public, or used elsewhere.

 

Donald Swarbrick.