PPlog

Press Release For Immediate Use: 22 March 2012 Disabled people to protest at company which assesses fitness of disabled people to work, but says ‘No Entry’ to wheelchair users. Disabled people and supporters will mount a protest on Friday morning (11am on 23 March) outside the Norwich premises of ATOS - a company which carries out medical assessments of disabled people who receive benefits - but which has a ‘No Entry’ policy to wheelchairs users. ATOS’s Norwich offices and other offices around the country are not accessible to wheelchair users. Norwich Access Group and Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People (NCODP) are assisting the protest at ATOS’s premises in Duke Street, Norwich. ATOS is employed by the government to assess whether unemployed disabled people receiving benefits are fit to work. Last year The Guardian newspaper revealed that ATOS had been set targets by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the numbers of people to fail their assessments....

Well! Miller the Killer beat us in that battle - the Welfare Act is now a reality. Time to regroup and move on. The next campaign stage, for me, is the coalition Disability Strategy and there may be several skirmishes ahead. One of  our allies here is the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee which published its report on the rights of disabled people to independent living on St David's Day (1st March 2012) - you can find the report here. This report is an important document for us, not in the least because it champions the United Nations Convention on the Right of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) .  But the committee is not confident in the recognition of its importance by service users and carers.  It says: “The evidence we received suggested that awareness of the UNCRPD among disabled people was low. Disability Action suggested that such a lack of awareness resulted in a weakness in the disability rights movement.” Further underlining its importance the committe...

From Roget: Synonyms for DISABLED: Synonyms: attenuate d, battered, blunt ed, damage d, debilitate d, disarmed, disenabled, disqualified, enervate d, enfeebled, exhaust ed, hamstrung, handicap ped, harm ed, hocked, hogtied, hurt , immobilized, impair ed, incapacitated, invalidate d, kiboshed, knocked out, maim ed, mangled, mar red, mutilate d, muzzled, paralyze d, pinioned, prostrate d, put out of action, rendered incapable, ruin ed, sabotage d, sap ped, shatter ed, shot down, spoil ed, taken out , thrown monkeywrench in, total led, unbraced, undermine d, unfit, unstrengthened, weaken ed, wrecked. What do you think? Heddwch. Mike.