Jobcentre tells claimant with bowel condition to ‘use bucket we keep behind the building’
A jobcentre security guard told a disabled man with a chronic bowel condition that he was not allowed to use the staff toilets, but that there was a bucket that was kept behind the building “for claimants to use”.
AJ* had asked security staff at the jobcentre in London if he could use the toilet facilities because he has limited control over his bowel.
They initially told him to use the toilets at a nearby station, but he said he would not be able to reach it in time.
He even showed the guards the 14-inch scar from a major operation that had left him with no stomach muscles to control his bowel, and which runs from his belly button to his neck, but he was told there were no exceptions to the rule.
AJ, who is on the waiting-list for further major surgery on his bowel, said the guard appeared to be “deadly serious”.
He said: “He even gave me directions. I was so ashamed to be told that I had to go to the loo in a bucket.”
Appalled by the “terrible” attitude he encountered, he found a nearby café and bought himself a coffee – which he was unable to drink because of his health condition – so he could use the toilet facilities, before returning to the jobcentre for his appointment.
It later emerged that the guard had been mocking AJ, and there was no bucket in the location he had directed him to and no way to access the back of the building.
The incident is only the latest example of a culture of contempt for benefit claimants within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that stretches back over the last decade.
It was highlighted most recently by evidence that emerged during January’s inquest into the death of Philippa Day, which included a DWP telephone agent admitting that she had failed to take any safeguarding action after the young disabled woman told her, sobbing, that she was cold, starving, and needed “a reason to live”.
And in April, Disability News Service (DNS) reported new research which showed how DWP staff and managers admitted that colleagues had deliberately inflicted psychological harm on benefit claimants, engaged in unofficial sanctioning targets, and pushed disabled people into work despite the risk to their health.
AJ told DNS that he believed the incident with the security guard, on Tuesday, demonstrated the cultural problems within the department, although he said his work coach had later been “very helpful” and supportive.
The network engineer was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who began claiming universal credit for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic.
In his case, he had to close his IT business because the lockdown meant so many people were working from home.
But despite needing the financial support from universal credit to survive, he is now reluctant to return to the jobcentre because of the way he was treated.
He said: “I am at the point where I don’t want to go back there. I am really distressed about it.”
DWP said yesterday (Wednesday) that the accessible toilet at the jobcentre had previously not been open to the public, due to COVID-19 guidance, but that the security guard had wrongly told AJ that it was not currently in use.
DWP denied that AJ was advised to use a bucket and said it was not possible for claimants or staff to access the back of the building, but that the jobcentre would apologise to AJ and discuss the incident.
A DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “We apologise to [AJ] who was wrongly told that the disabled facilities were not in use.
“Updated guidance has been issued to [the] jobcentre.
“The only alternative option [AJ] was offered were nearby railway station facilities.”
AJ told DNS yesterday that he had now received a call from the security guard, who apologised for the incident, blamed his comments on “problems with drug addicts” and promised to let him use the toilet next time he visited the jobcentre.
AJ said it appeared that the guard had invented the bucket and had been “taking the piss out of disabled people”.
*He has asked for his name not to be used.
23 September 2021
Concern as Tomlinson grants Disability Rights UK control over ministerial access
The minister for disabled people’s final public words before he was sacked in a reshuffle have raised fresh concerns about the government’s failure to engage with the disabled people’s movement.
Justin Tomlinson told MPs last week that he would be asking Disability Rights UK (DR UK) – which he described as the equivalent of a “trade body” for disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) – to choose which DPOs should have access to ministers.
He said there were “thousands and thousands” of DPOs, so the government would ask DR UK to “organise events throughout the year where they choose which of their DPO members will attend”.
He said that he or other ministers would attend those meetings.
Although DR UK is a DPO itself and has about 450 organisational members, only about 50 of them appear to be DPOs.
Tomlinson also told the meeting that he attended all the “bi-monthly” meetings of the Disability Charities Consortium, a powerful lobby group of non-user-led disability charities, which DR UK quit in June.
Tomlinson made the comments as he gave evidence to a meeting of the work and pensions select committee, hours before he was sacked and replaced by Norwich North MP Chloe Smith.
He had been questioned about complaints that have been raised about the way he and his government engaged with disabled people and DPOs in the lead-up to the publication of last month’s National Disability Strategy.
Among those concerns was his decision to shut down his own advisory forum of DPOs after just three meetings.
Some of England’s leading DPOs reacted to this decision by setting up their own independent DPO Forum England.
Tomlinson’s comments to the committee have caused concern among leading DPOs.
Tracey Lazard, speaking on behalf of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), a network of DPOs, said his comments showed again the government’s “marginalisation and disdain towards DPOs”.
She said that ROFA – whose members include Inclusion London, Disabled People Against Cuts, The Alliance for Inclusive Education and Sisters of Frida – was “concerned” that Tomlinson appeared to have “taken it upon himself to decide who is the representative DPO he will be working with”.
And she called on DR UK to clarify its understanding of Tomlinson’s description of it as a “trade body” for DPOs, and to work with other DPOs and DPO Forum England “to ensure a united and collective DPO voice that genuinely represents and reflects the needs and wishes of disabled people and DPOs”.
ROFA and other parts of the disability movement have repeatedly pointed out that the government’s failure to engage with DPOs is a breach of its duties under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Lazard added: “We’ve had enough of cynical, tokenistic engagement and demand nothing less than the meaningful, resourced, strategic engagement required in the CRPD.
“We will also be writing to the new minister for disabled people, Chloe Smith, to invite her to meet DPOs, with the aim of doing what we can to re-set the terms of engagement between DPOs and the government.”
Disability News Service had not been able to clarify with DR UK by noon today (Thursday) whether it had agreed Tomlinson’s approach to DPO engagement.
But Fazilet Hadi, its head of policy, said in a statement: “As a DPO we always welcomed engagement with the minister in our goal of affecting positive, meaningful change for disabled people.
“We have, and will, always seek to amplify the voices of disabled people, including the DPOs we work with, and to encourage government to engage with disabled people and DPOs directly in the widest and fullest ways possible.
“We have never used the terms ‘trade body’ or ‘gatekeeper’ to describe ourselves, and whatever the previous minister chose to think is now history.
“The new minister will have her own ideas on dialogue and we will raise the issue with her at the first opportunity.”
A DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “We are committed to working with disabled people and their organisations to put lived experience at the heart of policy-making.”
23 September 2021
DPOs tells new minister: ‘Disability poverty failure is shocking and unacceptable’
The new minister for disabled people has been told by many of the country’s leading user-led organisations that the failure to address disability poverty in her government’s new green paper is “shocking and unacceptable”.
Chloe Smith was appointed to the post late last week, following the sacking of Justin Tomlinson, and she now assumes responsibility for both the disability benefits green paper and the new disability strategy.
Serious concerns were raised by disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) about both the Shaping Future Support green paper and the National Disability Strategy in the days after their publication this summer.
The new DPO Forum England – which represents 21 of the country’s leading DPOs* and was set up after Tomlinson shut down his own advisory forum of DPOs – has now completed its detailed response to the green paper consultation, which closes on 11 October.
It says in its response that it is “shocking and unacceptable” that the green paper “completely fails to address the inadequacy of the financial support available to disabled people who face multiple and complex barriers to employment”.
It also says that the green paper’s repeated references to “affordability” and rising spending on disability benefits is a “major concern”, while its suggestion of a possible merger of personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit is “unacceptable”.
And it says that the green paper’s “framework of austerity” is “entirely at odds” with the results of the government survey used to inform the disability strategy, which found that only four per cent of disabled people agreed or strongly agreed that disabled people have enough financial support to meet their needs.
The response also says that the green paper is not based in “reality”, partly because it has failed to apologise to disabled people “for subjecting them to a hostile environment” which has caused “many deaths, large scale poverty, exclusion, and human rights abuses that have been examined in detail and condemned by the United Nations”.
Any reform must ensure that the “harmful practises and culture of the institutions administering benefits are changed to be supportive and constructive”, it says.
The DPO Forum England response also stresses the important of independent advocacy for disabled benefit claimants, which it says would best be provided by local DPOs.
And it raises concerns about the Access to Work scheme, the Disability Confident disability employment scheme, and the “20-metre rule” that prevents many disabled people accessing the PIP enhanced mobility rate, and it calls for the removal of all sanctions from the social security system.
It also contrasts the UK government’s approach to reform with that of the Scottish government, which “has been framed to alleviate Disabled people’s stress and anxiety and a lack of trust in the disability benefits system”.
Meanwhile, last week’s ministerial reshuffle also saw the social care minister, Helen Whately, moved to a role at the Treasury, and replaced by Gillian Keegan, who was previously an education minister.
*Members of the new forum include Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, Inclusion London, The Alliance for Inclusive Education, Equal Lives, Disability Positive in Cheshire, Disability Sheffield, and National Survivor User Network
23 September 2021
Judges reject claim that systemic DWP failings led to death, despite years of evidence
Three judges have rejected a mother’s bid to secure a second inquest into the death of her disabled daughter – who killed herself after her benefits were wrongly stopped – despite one of the judges criticising the “shocking” failures in the case.
Campaigner Joy Dove had asked the high court to quash the result of the first inquest into the death of her daughter, Jodey Whiting, and to order a second one.
Mrs Justice Farbey, who delivered the longest of the three judgements, said the failings of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were “shocking” and that the decision to remove her employment and support allowance (ESA) “should not have happened”.
But she concluded that DWP’s errors “amounted to individual failings attributable to mistakes or bad judgment” and were not “systemic or structural in nature”, and that it would be “extremely difficult for a new inquest to conclude that the Department caused Ms Whiting’s death”.
The three judges unanimously rejected Dove’s application for a second inquest, despite the Independent Case Examiner concluding in February 2019 that DWP failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to Jodey Whiting’s suicide.
Dove wants a detailed examination of DWP’s actions, which she believes caused her daughter’s death, just as another coroner thoroughly investigated DWP’s role in the death of Philippa Day.
Gordon Clow, the coroner who heard the inquest into Philippa Day’s death, concluded in January that flaws in the disability benefits system were “the predominant factor and the only acute factor” that led to her taking her own life.
He had reached that decision after a nine-day inquest that uncovered multiple failings by both DWP and its private sector contractor Capita in the 11 months that led up to her death in October 2019.
It was just the latest evidence of DWP’s institutional failure to guarantee the safety of disabled people – particularly those with a history of mental distress – within the disability benefits system.
Scores of deaths have been linked to DWP’s systemic failings, including its refusal to act on reports by coroners following inquests in 2010 and 2014.
Disability News Service revealed last December that DWP staff had had to be repeatedly reminded what to do when claimants threatened to take their own lives, following secret reviews into as many as six suicides linked to the benefit system.
Those reviews suggest that a series of suicides between 2014 and 2019 were linked to the failure of DWP staff to follow basic rules that had been introduced in 2009.
Despite last week’s high court ruling, all three judges agreed that there had been significant failings by DWP in dealing with Jodey Whiting’s case.
The mother-of-nine and grandmother from Stockton-on-Tees had taken her own life in February 2017, 15 days after she had her ESA mistakenly stopped for missing a work capability assessment.
The 42-year-old had been taking 23 tablets a day at the time she died, for conditions including scoliosis and bipolar disorder, and had been taking morphine twice daily.
She had been a long-time claimant of incapacity benefit, and then ESA, and DWP and its assessors had previously noted the severity of her mental health condition, and the risk that would be posed if she was found fit for work, and they were aware of her long history of suicidal ideation.
But the inquest into her death, which took place in May 2017, lasted just 37 minutes.
The coroner had turned down Dove’s request to examine DWP’s actions.
Dove, who is now considering whether to apply for permission to appeal the high court’s decision, said: “I am bitterly disappointed by the high court’s ruling.
“More than four years on from losing Jodey, the DWP has still not had to answer for the role that I believe they played in her death.
“Despite dismissing my application, the judgment makes it clear that the behaviour of the DWP has been shocking and I welcome the high court ruling that Jodey’s ESA should never have been withdrawn.
“This is not the end. I am not giving up and I will continue to fight for justice for Jodey.
“Thank you to all those that have supported me in this fight so far.”
Merry Varney, a partner at law firm Leigh Day, who is representing Dove, said: “I echo Joy’s disappointment with the court’s ruling, which we will be looking at carefully with Joy and advising her about an appeal.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “This is an incredibly tragic case and our condolences remain with Ms Whiting’s family.”
23 September 2021
Expansion of air pollution scheme ‘could have drastic impact on disabled people’
The mayor of London’s plans for a huge expansion of the capital’s low emission zone for cars could have a drastic and discriminatory impact on disabled people, say campaigners.
They fear that the current, limited exemptions for disabled people will leave many of them – and their care and health workers, personal assistants and carers – forced to pay the £12.50-a-day charge every time they use a car.
Now they are launching a new bid to crowdsource funding* so that a barrister can deliver a legal opinion on whether Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s actions are breaching disabled people’s human rights and the Equality Act.
The concerns have been mounting as the existing Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) – which currently only covers central London, and levies the daily £12.50 charge on older, more polluting light vehicles – is to be significantly expanded on 25 October to cover the entire area within the capital’s north and south circular roads.
Although there will be a three-year exemption for those with blue badges, it only applies to those with a vehicle tax exemption.
This means that those with a registered vehicle – mostly people with the enhanced rate mobility component of personal independence payment – will qualify for the three-year ULEZ exemption, but those without a vehicle that is registered tax exempt will not.
The campaign is being led by Kush Kanodia, a disabled ambassador for Disability Rights UK (DR UK), who also led a successful campaign to persuade the government to scrap parking charges for blue badge-holders in NHS carparks in England.
Disabled people’s organisations backing him include Inclusion London, DR UK and Action Disability Kensington and Chelsea.
Kanodia told Disability News Service that the mayor’s failure to act was “disgraceful” and that he was “trampling over our human rights”.
He said the plans would have a “significantly detrimental impact” on tens of thousands of disabled people in London, at a time when they had already been the group most disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
He said: “Unfortunately, nobody is currently looking at the cumulative impact of the pandemic and the renewed austerity upon disabled people, with rising food and energy prices, cuts to goods and services, and the £20-per-week cut to universal credit coming just a few weeks before these brutal ULEZ charges.”
Kanodia said that disability was already one of the strongest predictors of poverty, and that it was “completely unacceptable to impose new barriers upon disabled people”, particularly when only about a third of London’s tube stations were step-free.
He contrasted the treatment of blue badge-holders with the mayor’s decisions to grant a ULEZ exemption to diesel-fuelled black cabs and to approve the new Silvertown tunnel road crossing under the Thames.
Kanodia said: “It’s truly hypocritical that they can exempt all the diesel black cabs and approve a four-lane Silvertown tunnel, which will create more pollution than an exemption for disabled blue badge-holders and their carers.”
He and his supporters are supportive of the overall “progressive” aims of ULEZ, but they say the current limited exemptions breach disabled people’s rights and the Equality Act’s public sector equality duty.
They believe that the assessment carried out by the mayor of the impact of the extension of ULEZ failed to take proper account of how it would affect disabled people.
Kanodia said: “How can they have done an appropriate equality impact assessment and made reasonable adjustments when they do not even know how many disabled blue badge-holders are within the expanded ULEZ or know how many of the vehicles they currently are using are non-compliant?”
He and his fellow campaigners want the mayor to agree to the same reasonable adjustments that are already in place for London’s congestion charge zone, granting temporary ULEZ exemptions for all those with blue badges – whether they have their own car or not – and their care workers.
Kanodia fears that if the mayor does not adjust his plans, other UK cities will copy the London blueprint.
The mayor’s office has told Kanodia that there are about 250,000 disabled people with blue badges in the capital, but that it is “difficult to determine the exact proportion of ULEZ compliance in the Blue Badge fleet” although it has produced a rough estimate that about 50,000 vehicles used by blue badge holders would be “non-compliant” with the new expanded ULEZ.
Heidi Alexander, the deputy mayor for transport, has said that exempting all vehicles used by blue badge holders would “lead to an unacceptably large number of more polluting vehicles being used in London for longer” and would “reduce the vital health benefits of the scheme”.
The mayor’s office had failed to respond to requests to comment by noon today (Thursday).
*The link goes live at 8.25pm today (Thursday, 23 September)
23 September 2021
Watchdog says government has made zero progress on social security and rights
The UK government has made no progress in improving the way its social security system protects the rights of disabled people and other groups, according to a new assessment by the equality and human rights watchdog.
In its assessment of progress across 11 human rights areas, including the benefits system, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) concludes that several permanent welfare reforms introduced by the UK government have “adversely affected the enjoyment of human rights, in particular for women, disabled people, ethnic minority people and lone parents”.
And it highlights how the process of assessing entitlement to disability benefits has been found to disadvantage disabled people.
EHRC points out in its Human Rights Tracker how the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities concluded in 2016 that the Welfare Reform and Work Act had contributed to “grave and systemic violations of disability rights”.
EHRC also highlights concerns that methods used in the disability benefits assessment system have led to “the deaths of a number of benefit claimants”, pointing to the conclusions of the coroner who heard the inquest into the death of Philippa Day, who warned (PDF) in February that further such deaths could occur if the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its contractor Capita failed to act.
Although EHRC points to “temporary positive measures” taken during the pandemic, including the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit, it says there was no corresponding increase for people on so-called legacy benefits, such as employment and support allowance, most of whom were disabled.
Researcher Dr Miro Griffiths, a member of EHRC’s disability advisory committee, but speaking in a personal capacity, said: “The lack of progress on social security by the UK government is unsurprising and continues to give a stark warning that injustices encountered by disabled people will be sustained.
“The government needs to rethink its proposed commitment to improving disabled people’s lives, given that the latest disability strategy has been criticised – justifiably – by disabled people’s organisations across the country.
“There exist guidelines, proposals, and examples of good practice, which would improve disabled people’s access to social security and broader support mechanisms.”
And, he said, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, disabled people’s organisations and their coalitions, and academic research, “all provide suggestions to progress disabled people’s rights, protections, and fundamental freedoms”.
A DWP spokesperson said: “The government will have spent £241 billion on welfare spending in 2021-22 and continues to support disabled people with their everyday living needs.
“In addition, we are currently consulting on how we can go further so the welfare system better meets the needs of disabled people and those with health conditions through our health and disability green paper, as well as driving forward ambitious reforms across all areas of life through our National Disability Strategy.”
Each area of human rights covered by the EHRC tracker is given a colour-coded status, with five different levels, from “regression” to “no progress”, “limited progress”, “moderate progress” and up to “sustained progress”.
The 11 new assessments released on 16 September add to another 25 areas assessed since last December.
All 36 will now be regularly re-assessed for progress by the UK government, while separate analysis will continue to assess progress by the Welsh government.
The Human Rights Tracker currently shows that the UK government has made moderate progress in just two areas, limited progress in 18 areas, and no progress in eight areas (including social security).
In another eight areas, EHRC says there has been “sustained or severe regression”, including in inclusive education, poverty, social care and independent living.
Last December, on social care, EHRC reported: “Levels of unmet need for adult social care have increased in recent years, due to rising demand and funding constraints.”
And on independent living, EHRC reported last December that increasing numbers of disabled and older adults were “unable to get the support they need at home or within the community”, while there was “a real shortage of accessible homes”.
23 September 2021
Pioneering council praised for ground-breaking co-production on housing strategy
A local authority has been praised for once again breaking new ground on co-producing policy with disabled people, after publishing a new disabled people’s housing strategy.
Hammersmith and Fulham council, in London, has produced the housing strategy in co-production with disabled residents.
The strategy, and the council’s pioneering work on co-production, have been praised for providing a beacon of hope for disabled people across the country.
Three years ago, a “ground-breaking” report on co-production, commissioned by the council and produced by the Hammersmith and Fulham Disabled People’s Commission, focused on how to remove the barriers disabled people faced in the London borough by embedding a culture of genuine co-production within the council.
Now the Labour-run council has built on that report by working with disabled residents to identify the particular barriers they face in housing, and to co-produce solutions to those barriers.
Launching the strategy, Cllr Lisa Homan, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said it was the “first of a kind for Hammersmith and Fulham and perhaps for local authorities as a whole, as it has been co-produced with disabled residents”.
She said disabled residents had worked with councillors and senior managers to plan, design and review housing policies and services.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, told an online launch of the strategy: “We know it’s a first stage and there’s so much more to do but it’s really a vital stage and I can’t think of a more needed and central issue to co-produce with disabled people than housing… because it is an absolute basic essential right and foundation for a good life.
“We have just carried out a piece of research in London, but also with DPOs across England, and what we found is a really grim picture.
“We are seeing disabled people and our organisations increasingly isolated, excluded from decision-making.
“We are having, as individuals, but also communities and our organisations, support and resources systematically taken away from us, and so many DPOs and disabled people are reporting increased hostility.
“How important it is that we can point to Hammersmith and Fulham and say, look, this is a borough that is making different choices and is doing things in a different way.
“That is so important, not just to disabled residents in Hammersmith and Fulham, but I can tell you it is absolutely vital to disabled people in London and across the country because we are looking at what you are doing with great interest and sending you the very best wishes.”
The strategy’s four key objectives are to create a culture of co-production with disabled residents and work with them to improve their influence on housing services; to improve access to housing information; to improve the council’s services as a landlord for disabled residents; and to increase the supply of accessible and affordable housing.
Tara Flood, the council’s joint strategic lead for co-production, said: “It’s great that we have a co-produced strategy, but there is a lot of hard work now turning that strategy into action.”
A group will now be responsible for implementing the strategy, to be co-chaired by Cllr Homan and a disabled resident.
Flood, a former chief executive of The Alliance for Inclusive Education, said: “For far too long, decisions about our lives as disabled people, the way we live, where we live, who we live with and who supports us, have been made by non-disabled people, so now is the time to get involved.”
She said that co-production “does signal a new way of doing things, and it does very firmly place disabled people not only at the heart of decision-making, but in the lead on that decision-making”.
Faisal Yusuf, chair of Safety Net – People First, a self-advocacy organisation in the borough, said: “Most people with a learning difficulty are expected to live with family or a support worker.
“How many of you would have expected to live with your parents all your life?
“I live in my own place. What is so good about this? The freedom! The freedom to eat what I want, sleep when I want, go out when I want, stay in when I want, things like that.
“It’s a human right to live where we want to.
“Why is co-production important? We know what the barriers are, and we know the support we need. This is why you need us to work with you.”
Victoria Brignell, chair of Action on Disability, another disabled people’s organisation based in the borough, said disabled people had had to fight for many years for accessible housing in London.
She said the new strategy was a “truly co-produced, ground-breaking document shaped by local disabled people”.
She also welcomed the council’s new independent living vision, which meant that disabled people in the borough “are empowered to influence and change how our council provides accessible housing support.
“The aim is to give us full independent living, so we are not dependent on an outdated model of social care.
“We as disabled people want to make our own decisions and take full control over our lives, not rely on decisions taken by non-disabled decision-makers.”
Lisa Redfern, the council’s strategic director of social care, said the disabled people’s housing strategy represents “a break from the old way of doing things” and would give residents a “leading role and not a tokenistic role in developing housing and housing services”.
But she said the strategy was “only the beginning; it is how we do it, how we implement it, that makes the difference, and that’s the really tough bit”.
23 September 2021
Documentary provides ‘remarkable’ insight into pandemic lives
A new documentary film has provided an insight into the lives of individual disabled people in Wales during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 35-minute Unlocked Lives film was produced by Disability Wales, and features a series of disabled people sharing their views on life during the pandemic, and describing some of the issues they have faced.
Disability Wales provided accessible video-making resources that allowed the participants to safely record their thoughts during the different waves of the pandemic.
Amanda, from Welshpool, talks on camera of how the pandemic has made life more accessible for many disabled people, which demonstrates how “this has been possible all along”.
She says: “Why weren’t we doing it sooner? You can make access work, and you can make work accessible. You might just have to think a little harder.
“And I think that’s been a problem in the world for a long time, that people just don’t think.
“A lot of people are desperate to get back face-to-face. I’m not. I’m happy to stay on Zoom forever.”
She predicts that it could be another year before there is a return to “any semblance of normality”, but she adds: “I don’t want to go back to that normal anyway because it excluded me.”
Trevor, from Newport, shares his fear that, although he is looking forward to the end of lockdown, he fears it will be eased too soon.
Several of the participants talk of how hobbies such as growing food, arts, knitting and looking after pets have helped them through the pandemic.
Others describe the communication and other difficulties caused by the widespread use of face masks.
Trevor says he found it difficult to communicate with his care workers when they were wearing masks so he designed a face covering with a transparent window for the mouth so that he – and those who rely on lip-reading and facial gestures – could find that easier.
Several of those who took part in the project talk about the mental health challenges the pandemic has posed for disabled people.
Jude, from Cardiff, says many people are “finding it really, really difficult out there.
“They still don’t know whether the information they’re told is right or wrong.
“They still don’t know whether it’s safe to go out or stay in.
“And a lot of people have sort of become agoraphobic in a way. Because now they’re told that they can go out, they’ve been in for so long, they’ve forgotten how to talk to people.”
David, from Brecon, says: “I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future because it’s all up in the air. No-one knows what’s happening.”
His partner Clare adds: “I don’t know, and I’m scared of it.”
But one participant, Tina, from Carmarthen, says that she does not believe all the “fear-mongering” about the virus, and she criticises media attempts at “brainwashing” people into attacking those who refuse to be vaccinated.
The film – funded by The National Lottery Community Fund Wales and co-produced by Dogma Films – premiered online on Friday.
Miranda Evans, policy and programmes manager for Disability Wales, said: “This has been a remarkable project, capturing the everyday life of disabled people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Each individual story is unique and provides personal insight into the highs and lows of lockdown.
“This project does not solely recount the issues and challenges of social isolation and disability during the COVID-19 outbreak, it also casts an eye on future societal reflection and attempts to create a stimulus for positive change and a drive to influence policymaking.”
Nic, from Cardiff, who features in the film, added: “Unlocked Lives has inspired me to speak out and tell others how life is as a disabled person.
“We need support, need our friends and family, and need people to treat us with respect like they treat others.
“We do not want to be locked away, instead we want to embrace life to the fullest.”
23 September 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
