A discussion started by a member on one of my favourite forums, which is raisingkids.co.uk by the way has finally started me thinking again, real long and pitiful story about my lack of thinking thats for another long and boring blog I think!
http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/4625529.Club_night_launched_for_youngsters/#commentsform
I have been up all night considering the idea that young disabled people regardless of what their disability is want to have their own pubs and clubs and the reasoning that there are a lot of people out there who think this is a great idea! Now I can not comment on the volunteer who has started this particular 'disabled club night' or how poorly his area is for catering for the needs of any disabled persons ability to socialise like the non disabled. I am sure he is a great bloke, most volunteers I know are, hell I used to volunteer quite a bit myself and some used to think of me as a great person, was about to write bloke there! lol I've changed a lot though and as a human being I am thinking probably a lot for the worse and I don't think I like the new me. Why can I no longer see an act of charity as being just that? Why am I starting to think that Charities especially ones for the disabled are a bad thing? I have argued on the Ouch site on the side of the charities before and none of the radicalised arguements have swayed me, so why has one guy wanting disabled people to be able to go out and have a good time got me?
Once again it feels like it is being left to charities, organisations who are making sure that these young people are always seen as vulnerable wherever they go, instead of pushing for proper support that could see many of these young adults lead full and integrated lives. They get half hearted schemes aimed at segregating them further from the society that really needs to take a long hard look at themselves and realise that those people who are as you describe of sound mind but are perhaps differently abled physically are not requesting this, they want to do what they have as much right as anyone else to do, they are fed up being excluded especially when there is already Law in place that should be being enforced to ensure those rights. It is like a charity saying 'well you should have this, you are entitled to it but because the statute law on this is about as much use as toilet paper really and those that wrote it really can't be arsed enforcing it unless they see an opportunity to make some money from the fines they collect from those who do breach it, this will have to do, it's not much but it's all your are getting! Take it or leave it!
If the changes being considered under the current review of the Green Paper regarding benefits for the disabled mainly to carers allowance, care component of DLA and Attendance Allowance were to ever put into practice ie take the money from the disabled person and give it to Local Authorities then we really would see change.
Where the curent benefits make no distinction between needing help and actually getting that help so can pay a pittance to the disabled and their carers. Councils won't be allowed to do that and will have to start paying for actual care. In my case for example, instead of paying Rab £53.10 pw and me £47.10 pw (I would be entitled to the higher rate because of how bad things are now but you know what I really can't be arsed claiming it!)
So who is my council going to pay £100 pw for the 24 hour care I need at the moment, may need for years? Bear in mind that health and safety means I would need 2 qualified and trained and police checked. Many conditions like mine are very variable and the type of help they can change from hour to hour! If they do rehash the care components of disibility benefits in the way they are thinking. Care for people with disibilities, firstly would quadruple everyones council tax overnight and bankrupt every local health authority in a day!
We have heard the arguments of people who say "well if you need that kind of help you should be in hospital or home anyway!"
The pain I'm in at the moment despite the useless morphine I'm on, I could perhaps be in trouble arguing on that one this morning! At the end of the day absolutely no one has a right to not be in pain, whether they are disabled or not! I have absolutely no acute medical need for a hospital bed, so that leaves the 'care home' option and they really are having a laugh with that one aren't they? We don't even have enough care places for our elderly which is why they get to be known as 'bed blockers' in their old age, left to rot in hospital wards so understaffed that recent studies and a lot of old studies for that matter show that a large amount of those poor people get left to lie in pain, in their own waste and many end up suffering from preventable but potentially life threatening infections and even malnutrition!
To be able to put every disabled person who requires any level of care into a home, we would need to be thinking along the lines of rebuilding the massive institutions of yesteryear! Wow and won't that do wonders for the rights of not just the disabled but for everyone in the country. Might be a little in conflict with Articles 1, 2, 5 and 8 of the EHRA but who'll care about human rights when we can look at it and say "well at least we will be saving all us tax payers that ' potential' £3658.20 that every disabled person gets a year towards the cost of their care and the bleeding hearts that don't like it (or do but are too ashamed to admit it) well they can start or join the charities or groups that ease their consciences and make the world see just how much we do care by all the nice things we are willing to do for them, like giving them their own pubs for instance!"
You will notice that I use the term 'we' there because I, who am still a taxpayer myself and does give, has joined and fundraised for these groups now considers and accepts that I myself is and always has been a part of the problem.
Charity is what lets governments, society and the whole world get away with not doing what we should be, not just for the disabled but for everyone everywhere! I doubt that we will ever change though so like everyone else I just have to make like Tesco's and say "every little helps!" and be grateful that the vast majority of people in this country will have absolutely not a clue what I am talking about until many, many years into their personal futures after hopefully having lived very long, healthy and happy lives!
Cath x
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