The Green Party’s General Election candidate for Vauxhall, Joseph Healy, has been named as the first candidate to support the campaign by Carer Watch to restore the right to unconditional benefits for people diagnosed with serious and enduring illness, some with just months left to live.
Following the introduction of the Welfare Reform Act last November, the government has introduced new testing of all those on incapacity benefit to find out whether they are genuinely unable to work, and then place them on the new ESA (Employment and Support Allowance), where payments vary according to levels of disability or illness.
A spokesperson from Carer Watch commented:
"People with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder have been our focus up to recently, but now we are seeing cases of people with severe physical illness and limited time to live being required to go through back-to-work hoops. It’s absolutely appalling."
Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall, Joseph Healy, said:
"I recently visited a disabled woman who works in a Job Centre Plus for the DWP and she told me that their office was full of claimants, some of whom had only months to live, because of the ridiculous rule that anyone with over 6 months left had to come in and sign once every few months. She said that their offices were clogged up with people clearly unable to work and desperately ill because of government red tape.
"As a disabled person myself, who is also a recipient of the Disability Living Allowance, I realise the importance of these benefits for people living with long term conditions. Living with a long term illness or disability is difficult enough without having to feel stigmatised also.
"Now all we can do is fight to get this law changed so that seriously sick people once again get the care and respect from the Department of Work and Pensions that they deserve."
Editors notes
Profile of Joseph Healy
Joseph Healy is Lambeth Green Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Vauxhall constituency at the General Election.
He has worked for the last four years as director of a disability charity in Brixton campaigning for better accessible transport for disabled people and is himself disabled. He currently works for Lambeth’s main disability organisation, Disability Advice Service Lambeth on a part time basis.
Joseph was a pioneer in the LGBT rights movement in the Irish Republic in the 70s and early 80s and has campaigned strongly in London on issues connected with HIV and health. He is also Vice Chair of Patients Forum Ambulance Services (London) Ltd and has been very involved for a number of years in efforts to strengthen public and patient involvement in the NHS, as well as combating the ever increasing trend to privatise the health service.
He is Co-Convenor of Green Left, the eco-socialist, anti-capitalist platform within the Green Party. He is also the Green Party’s delegate to the Stop the War coalition and an active anti-war campaigner.
He is an active trade unionist and was a member of UNITE as well as being a delegate to Southwark Trades Council. He is now a member of UNISON.