Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 26 January 2022

PE1913/B - Fast-track future Adult Disability Payment applications for people undergoing cancer treatment

I have had around thirty people tell me their horror stories of people to have tubes inserted to feed them and told they not entitled to PIP as it is not affecting their lives enough or they have not received their PIP until treatment finished around 20 weeks after.

I can only give details of what my family member is going through. He was told last February that he has uncurable blood cancer and he had the highest dose of radiotherapy for the cytoma on his back. He has not been able to give up work for this and has only had 2 weeks off. He is now going for a by-op on his left kidney as he has a growth there which is probably due to his treatment.

He was told that although he has this, it is not affecting his life enough. He is at the moment getting no PIP and his future treatments may not happen as we can’t afford the travel cost or for me to take time of work. The result of patients not getting financial help is 3 times as much stress and they don’t recover quickly, it takes longer. My family member also has PVD in both legs and can’t walk down street and he suffers from fibre myalgia syndrome which means he is pain 24/7. These people like my family member didn’t ask for this and has worked hard all his life and they feel like their lives are worth nothing. We don’t allow animals to suffer like this so why are we doing it to cancer patients.