Man too ill to attend fit-for-work interview but terrified of losing benefits dies after Atos test

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/terry-mcgarvey-man-ill-attend-3178486

Terry McGarvey had to be taken to hospital by ambulance after his Atos assessment but he died the following day

A seriously ill man died hours after he was hauled into an Atos fit-for-work assessment.

Terry McGarvey knew he wasn’t well enough to attend the hearing, but was terrified his benefits would be stopped if he didn’t turn up.

He dragged himself to the assessment but had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance. Terry, 48, died the next day.

His brother Charlie, 50, told the Daily Record : “He said he felt terrible and didn’t think he could leave the house.

“But he was worried they’d take his benefits away if he didn’t go.

“When he went in, he sat down with a young woman who started asking him questions.

“I pointed out that he needed an ambulance, not a medical.

“They put us into a room next door and lay him on a bed. We waited more than an hour for the ambulance without anyone coming in to even ask how he was.”

Terry, who had blood disorder polycytheamia, died in Glasgow’s Victoria Infirmary from pneumonia last month. His death certificate also lists liver disease.

Charlie, from Glasgow, said Atos’s trained medical assessors should have realised his brother, a former lorry driver, was dangerously ill.

He added: “I think that if they had a doctor in there, they would have got an ambulance immediately.

“The girl who was supposed to be doing the examination never brought out a stethoscope or anything. They just put him in the room next door and that was the last we saw of her.”

An Atos spokesman said: “We would like to express our condolences to Mr McGarvey and his family.

As soon as we were made aware that Mr McGarvey had taken ill, we offered our assistance and called for an ambulance.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “The call was clinically triaged as a non-emergency based on detailed information provided by the caller.

“The caller was advised that the response to a non-emergency call at that time could take up to an hour but to call 999 again if the patient’s condition deteriorated.”

On Friday, victims of fit-to-work tests welcomed the news that Atos are ending their contract to carry out
Work Capability Assesments for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Thousands of seriously ill and vulnerable people have been deemed fit to work by the tests, only for the verdicts to be overturned on appeal.

I think that the woman who was assessing this poor guy should be held culpable , if she is qualified to say that this man should be fit for work , surly she should be qualified to see if the man was ill , and to the fact that a non emergency ambulance was called , should flag her culpability .

Very sad

They're not qualified, they're young, inexperienced and often paid under 20k in atos.

The whole thing is unnecessary given that atos DWP inquisition costs more than the govt loses in estimated benefits fraud.

The logical thing to do would be to get rid of the inquisition altogether, save lord alone knows how many billions and swallow the benefits fraud...they'd actually have MORE money.

Thats logic though, something a lot of ppl nowadays seem to have in short supply.

Thing is andy , I know plenty that milk it , who should be working and being assessed and sanctioned , but it's a damn shame for people like this guy and his family , man may be in better place (idk) but his family have lost a loved one due to the sheer greed and lazyness of others .

scaltura wrote:
Get the facts.

Find out how much benefit fraud costs.

Find out how much atos costs.

Then add them together and you then have the total pissed away by government.

Let me know when you have the eureka moment

andyh wrote:
TBH I'm not going to trawl the net to try and find figures , on doleys nor atos

I'm not getting what you are getting at really

So I need a uerika moment to really understand what I know about people that milk the system and what I feel about a man dying at an assesment

www.scriptonitedaily.com/2013/06/25/atos...ht-to-keep-just-131/

If you paid billions for something (TO SAVE MONEY) wouldn't you want billions + extra in return?

The only time the answer is no, is if there is an agenda to push for an entirely different purpose, chiefly to divide and conquer.
Set the classes against each other, give the impression the tax payers are suffering because of shitloads of people who fraudulently claim benefits.

The truth of the matter is that atos does not return money on top of costs, so the only answer is that this is purely ideological as per above.

10,600 ppl died after being claimed as fit for work by atos.

This isn't just clumsy its fucking genocide!

andyh wrote:
Your spot on andy,Does it really matter in the scheme of things if a few people get a small amount of money to eke out a living from benefits.

You've got to have a sad life if anybody gets jealous of that similar to when people get jealous of prisoners FFS .

The money ends up going to local shopkeepers,utility companies etc anyway.

Oh i forgot it keeps people alive,the bastards

Andy , there is a little word that you may like to take a look at 'principal' , I know what you mean is that it is costing more to save money , but it would balance out in time , as once the foundations were set attitudes may change .

Someone at work steals a biscuit out of your lunchbox at work , everyday , it's no great deal as it's only a biscuit , but it'll be the last thing you do finding out who , it's the principal that will drive you .

Atos should not be given our money , not one single penny , and to deem some of the people fit to work that they have , is beyond criminal , please don't get me mixed up , but there are many people up and down this country who just rip the utter pish oot the welfare state , these people should be put to work , and why i should have to pay to subsidise any other human beings kids is beyond me , wether it be a 2.4 children type family getting child benefits , or some little munter wi 6 weans (5 fathers) in a council house .

It's everyone they go after too - not just 'fraudsters'. There are so many stories of people with legitimate claims losing them for no good reason.

Unless people agree with ATOS on matters, for example,like the young woman in a wheelchair with the mental age of a 3 year old being a bit of a fraudster because, she's no good reason not to get a job.

scaltura wrote:
Of course people on disability fraudulently ought to be put to work, however not at a cost of several times the magnitude of what they are actually costing the state to begin with.
If the fraud is 1.2bn then why not simply swallow it and ignore it until such time as someone can come up with an efficient and cost effective way of reducing the fraud?

The DWP admin errors alone cost 2.3bn ffs lol.... do the govt contract anyone out to sort that fucking mess out? NO THEY DO NOT....

The only people who benefit from atos are tory boys, the daily mail and solicitors taking the govt to court.

andyh wrote:
You wouldn't ignore someone stealing out your lunchbox on a daily basis

As far as knowing who profits from this , I know andy , I'm not wet behind the ears

https://disabilitynewsservice.com/2014/02/more-than-100000-disabled-people-had-benefits-sanctioned/

More than 100,000 disabled people had their unemployment benefits removed in just one year as a punishment for not complying with strict new government rules, according to official figures.

Are all these people swinging the lead? I think not.

I'd ignore crumbs falling on the floor off my sandwich scal, which is what 1.2bn is.

sanctumzone.co.uk/forum/today-s-news/942...benefits.html#189371

^THAT is stealing the lunch out of the box.

andyh wrote:
I know , I know , I know

For me theft is theft , a liar a liar

We can just ignore steven as he was only robbed for £20 , because we're still miffed about peter being robbed of £500



edit

You never dropped any crumbs , a biscuit was stolen

scaltura wrote:
Its more like 2p versus £2,000,000 to put it into scale but nm....

even if there are a significant number of people exaggerating illness to claim benefits, what are we going to do with them if we stop their disability benefits, pay them jobseekers? It's not as if we can find them jobs, there are too few already. Even if we forced them to work and refused jobseekers, all most people would get would be min wage jobs which would mean we have to pay them income support/housing benefit etc anyway. It's all a bit pointless really. I'm with Andy on this one, just scrap the assessments, probably be cheaper overall for everyone.

diforumreject wrote:
Not probably, definitely
It's totally provable the gov have released the costs info and its there for all to see.
There is no logic to it. It's purely ideological

The minister for disabled people, Mike Penning, said that he apologised 'unreservedly' to the family of Sheila Holt.

A government minister has apologised after it emerged that a Whitehall department sent letters to a woman demanding she make an effort to find work even though she was in a coma.

The minister for disabled people, Mike Penning, said he apologised "unreservedly" to the family of Sheila Holt after he was challenged in the Commons.

"It's about time politicians did stand up and apologise when things went wrong. It clearly has gone wrong and the family have every right to be aggrieved and I hope she makes a full recovery, as much as she can," said Penning.

Holt, who has suffered from physical and mental health problems, was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions, which invited her to attend "intensive job-focused activity", according to her MP Simon Danczuk. She fell into a coma in December last year and the government and its contractor were informed, the Labour MP told the Commons.....

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/...woman-coma-find-work

The number of (ahem!) "disabled" has rocketed in recent decades. The system is being scammed - big time.

It is perfectly proper to have some sort of system to double check. However, it seems the government were trying to do this on the cheap. ATOS seems to be a bit of a disaster.

Ultimately these claimants are not receiving 'government' money. The government has no money. They are receiving money from their fellow citizens who pay tax on earnings and pensions. As such a citizen, I don't want to be scammed.