Karen Sherlock - An Ordinary Woman In An Extraordinary World
Karen Sherlock was just an ordinary woman. She didn’t have a
great deal of money, her health meant she didn’t get many opportunities to go
out, particularly not anywhere you might have seen her, and even if you did you
wouldn’t have given her another thought. Just another woman in middle age as
invisible as all women past a certain age become.
But Karen had another life, one in which she was recognised
for her courage and determination to stand up for the rights of all sick and
disabled people subject to the Work Capability Assessment. You might not have
noticed Karen, but had you paid attention you would have seen the story of an
utterly remarkable woman, who’s experiences typify the disconnect between the
reality of sick and disabled people’s lives and the blunt instrument employed
by the state to rule if we are ‘fit for work’.
Karen was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 3. By
the time she reached working age she was already developing complications from
the diabetes, but that didn’t stop her working and living a full life. Time
passed, she married her beloved Nigel and worked in the NHS. Her health
worsened, and after losing most of her eyesight it became impossible for her to
continue working. In February 2008 Karen was dismissed from her job due to ill
health, a decision made by the Occupational Health arm of Atos on behalf of the
Pensions Agency.
This is when Karen’s nightmare truly began. She applied for
Employment Support Allowance, formerly called Incapacity Benefit, which is a
benefit for people who are unable to work temporarily or permanently due to
disability or ill health. She was called to attend a Work Capability Assessment
‘medical’, again run by Atos, but an Atos held to entirely different standards by
the Department of Work and Pensions than the Atos who’d decided she was unfit
to work in the NHS. The standards used by Atos to medically retire Karen from
her NHS job considered whether she was well enough to do that specific job, but
as intended by the government, the Work Capability Assessments she endured were
designed purely to assess whether people have any capacity for some work in
some form. Ministers such as Chris Grayling have made it very clear that this
is the intention of the test by repeatedly stating their ‘absolute
and implacable opposition to a real world test’. In normal person speak
what that means is that Ministers refuse to consider a fitness for work testing
process that considers the job the person was trained to do and whether they
are still capable of carrying that out, instead focusing narrowly on whether
they have some capacity to perform imaginary work related tasks such as being
able to sit at a workstation for half an hour. On May 30th 2012, the
day before Karen was finally placed in the Support Group, a mere 10 days before
her death, Chris Grayling announced that those in the Work Related Activity
Group, those people just like Karen who could soon expect to be mandated to the
Work Programme “have
proved sicker and further from the workplace than expected” That is one way
of describing it to the 32
families each week grieving the death of their loved ones who had been
found ‘fit for future return to work’, people a far cry from the supposedly
lazy scroungers the public have been led to believe this policy applies to.
Karen described her first WCA in Spring 2008 as a ‘farce’,
never heard the results and was called for another WCA in August 2008 when she
was placed in the Work Related Activity Group. Karen had diabetic autonomic
neuoropathy, gastropaerisis and diabetic retinopathy. She was partially
sighted, with a heart condition, asthma, chronic kidney disease, B12
deficiency, anaemia, high blood pressure and was frequently doubly incontinent.
For all these reasons she was correctly found unfit to perform her role in the
NHS, but the Work Capability Assessment is not designed to consider whether
someone is fit to work in their job of training, it is a blunt tool purely
intended to separate people out into 3 categories; those who are unfit for any kind of work,
placed into the Support Group with no conditions attached to their benefit
receipt, those who are considered entirely fit for work and transferred to
jobseekers allowance, then the WRAG
intended for people with some disability or health problems considered
able to return to the workplace in some future capacity. Those placed in the
WRAG are expected to participate in activities aimed at returning them to the
work place, including mandatory work programmes in some circumstances. For
those in receipt of contributions based ESA (the benefit paid in return for
National Insurance contributions) a one year time limit applies,
retrospectively, whereas this benefit used to be paid as of right to those with
sufficient NI contributions for as long as they were sick or disabled. This
means that people such as Karen who had worked all their lives lose their
eligibility for ESA. Karen’s husband Nigel worked, but even before tax didn’t
earn anything approaching the £26,000 pa means testing limit being introduced
for other benefits. This didn’t matter
as the means testing limit for ESA is a partner earning a mere £7500 pa.
Karen endured the stress and anxiety of four WCA’s and
subsequent appeal processes between 2008 and April of 2012 when her ESA stopped
completely, leaving her and Nigel £380 per month worse off. Karen was
terrified, so much so that her fear was palpable, even online. She worried
about how they’d pay their mortgage, basic bills, how Nigel would cope. At the
same time Karen was consumed with anxiety about the financial aspects she was
also in worsening health, awaiting an operation to enable her to start
dialysis, being considered for the transplant list and investigated for
worsening cardiac problems. Despite all
that, Karen remained in the Work Related Activity Group.
I first knew Karen in October 2010, when we founded The
Broken of Britain a social media based disability rights campaign. We were
asking sick and disabled people to speak out, to tell their stories about how
they had become reliant upon benefits, and people were initially reluctant.
Pride and fear combine to prevent us wanting to discuss the intimate details of
our lives in public. But a small handful of people stepped forward in those
first few days, they pushed aside their anxiety that speaking out would be used
against them by the DWP and told their stories. Karen was one of these people.
Although she is probably the most terrified person I have encountered to date
about the welfare reforms, she was also the first to stand up to be counted.
Karen understood that telling her story would help other people and so she
acted in characteristic manner and did what she believed to be right for
everyone. The last email I have from Karen is from early April 2012 when she
told me she’d used the benefits calculator I’d suggested to see if there was
any other support she and Nigel could claim. There wasn’t. I couldn’t offer
Karen any hope, all I could do was apologise and explain to her that this was
the exact intended effect of the benefit ‘reforms’ we had all fought so hard to
prevent.
I can’t think of an online group who didn’t benefit from
Karen’s presence over the past two years, she played an active role wherever
she could, trying to support other people in distress. When Karen was
frightened, which was most days, she would literally beg other campaigners for
the reassurance that everything would be ok. Every time it broke a piece of my
heart not to be able to offer her the security she needed, the answer she was
so desperate to hear, that it would be ok, that it was all some big mistake.
None of us could ever tell Karen that, she died a mere 8 days after getting the
notice she had finally been placed in the support group, her last years of life
utterly blighted by ‘despair,
helplessness and frustration’ directly caused by a government who’s leader
had pledged to alleviate precisely such bureaucratic suffering.
For me, one memory typifies both Karen Sherlock and the
complex, bureaucratic cruelty she experienced. The Atos nurse who performed
Karen’s initial WCA was kind to her and tried to reassure her that she should
be in the support group. These comments stuck with Karen, she could not
understand how what had been so obvious to the first person to assess her had
been overturned, nor why everyone else she appealed to seemed so wilfully blind
to it. It both haunted Karen and gave her the strength to carry on fighting for
what she knew to be right. I explained to Karen that although she’d been
assessed by an Atos employee, a Department of Work and Pensions Decision Maker,
with no medical training made the final decision about which group people are
allocated to, the support or Work Related Activity group Karen was repeatedly
placed in. In passing I mentioned that the people carrying out the ‘medicals’
weren’t supposed to comment on which group people are put in. Despite her
terror, her anxiety and the disgraceful way the system had treated such a
vulnerable individual, Karen worried that if she spoke out about that nurse’s
compassion she might get her into trouble for having demonstrated a kindness
the process of claiming Employment Support Allowance is designed to deny.
Goodnight Karen, Sleep Well Xx
 |
| Flowers and tributes were sent for Karen's funeral from donations from her online family |
9 comments:
Thank you for putting across Karen's story so eloquently.
Probably speaking for many. Even though we don't know Karen our hearts go out to Karen's beautiful family, again sleep well and RIP Karen who bravely told her story.(The challenges of the DWP are disgraceful.)
Speechless and tearful, sending love x
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk...
Rest in Peace Karen. We will remember you as we try to make our way to the Ordinary world...
that's all we want after all, not too much to ask for is it?
God Bless Karen. It is heartbreaking to think that your final weeks/months of life were lived in fear and trepidation for yourself your family and others facing the same discrimination. How on earth can these people who make such decisions about people's lives live with themselves? God knows I couldn't.
Rest in peace Karen. X
Im so sorry! And i hope her husband Nigel will be ok.God bless you Karen
I've just come back from Karen's funeral at Portchester Crematorium - unfortunately, my husband Michael was in too much pain to attend the ceremony, and for that reason we didn't attend the reception at Portsmouth City Golf Club.
The celebration of Karen's life was as I'm sure she would have wished it. I was touched that her little dog was allowed to attend the service. We listened to some of her favourite Duran Duran, and heard the vicar speaking about taking a positive approach to our memories of her, remembering her as she continued on her journey, and keeping her work going.
I never met Karen, but I read her blog, and always admired and respected the way she dealt with the dreadfully cruel reaction by our so-called 'caring' society to those who, like her, were unable to do the work for which she'd trained, not because of any unwillingness on her part, but because of her worsening physical condition. Yet, like her, there are thousands whose situation is being made worse by a government that seems intent on snatching any comfort, and dignity, from those who are suffering chronic and disabling illness.
Karen - may flights of angels sing you to your rest.
This truly moving post brought me close to tears. Karen sounded like a truly remarkable and compassionate lady. Such a tender tribute to her. I feel for her friends and family for their terrible loss. It's utterly heartbreaking to think Karen endured so much stress on top of her health problems in the years before she passed away. So many of us are fighting her battle too. Living in a state of near terror, so worried about this constant reassessment process, being found fit for work, appealing, and being placed under pressure we can't cope with, or made to endure mandated work when we're too sick in the work related activity group. Worse still, as Karen had to face, the reality of losing all support and plunged into poverty or even destitution. It's just too cruel.
We will keep on fighting with you Karen. We will never ever give up.
My sincere condolences and sympathies to everyone who called her their friend.
This contains very strong language throughout, but he is right on the money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_xxDoBwmJc
its just that I thought of of yo u having been over a year ago and now this fight still goes on rest karan now that yo ustill remembered by us all jeff3
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