i really wish i had found this forum 2-3 weeks ago

oksy so here is my(well really my mothers story)

im her carer and on monday past he had her tribunal appeal and was disallowed with the only 6 points given to her were in the mobility category, this was after a year long wait after her initial assessment and getting 0 points.

she has multiple ailments and will be 60 next year yet they deem her fit for work, if whe was born like 2 years earlier she would have reached retirement age before they raised it and this wouldnt even be an issue

she had a heart attack in her early thirties and shes on all the meds associated with that for the rest of her life,

she has
angina,
Sciatica(sp? taken form google),
vascular disease in her legs,
a narrowing in her bowel making it very difficult to pass waste,
she has panic attacks on a regular basis
and she is only just over diabetes and i mean a matter of weeks

these are the things i do for her because she just isnt able:

help her in and out of the bath,
open tins of peas and carrotts,
open jard of jam,
reach to give her down things from high shelves,
and carrying heavy items because she just doesnt have the upper body strength to do so

and after all that all she got was 6 points into mobility, how didnt she receive any points into dexterity and reaching? and we didnt have a chance to question this until the tribunal was over since they didnt give us those papers until after the decision was made

she siad the two representatives from the Citizens Advice Bureau were like nodding dogs during the tribunal and barely said anything

on the initial assessment the person who assessed her said in his report "he was well turned out" and " bent over to put on shoes without problems" so im not sure how competent he was given the fast that my mother is a woman(could be a typo i suppose) and that she was wearing slip on shoes so would have had no need to bend over

her assessor also asked her to bend over to touch her toes, she replied saying she couldnt but he asked her to try, so being who she is and trusting doctors she tried her best and he wrote in his report saying bends over with no problem, but he neglected to ask her if she was in any pain after bending over

my mother also used to walk for an hour a day on her doctors and nurses orders and since this was at the time of the assessment it is taken into account, what isnt or should i say wasnt taken into account is that she doesnt walk any more because its become too painful.

the two people from citizens advice tell her she was 3 choices,

wait to see if they can find any legal points where the tribunal didnt take into consideration to get their decision overturned(2-6 months apparently)

apply for jsa even though she knows and here doctor knows she cant possibly work

or reapply for esa even though this is the likely option she is hesitant because ofc being assessed so poorly before and being disallowed at the tribunal

she would love to be able to work , she has been since she was 14 but she knows that she cant possibly stay on her feet for 5-8 hours a day, yes she WAS able to walk for an hour a day but show me the job that only asks you to be on your feet for one hour a day that doesnt include some sort of computing/digital interface

i bought a digital tv for the switch over last october, i bought it in march and she has only just learned the basics, shes not mentally challenged but she just doesnt do technology


oh and shes on the high rate of dla too, the highest you can get i think , we have a motability car for going to the shops

please any help or direction you can give on this would be greatly appreciated


and also the thing is we just dont have the money to survive(notice i say survive and not live) without her esa and the hassle of jsa would send her properly over the edge and besides who would hire her?

something i missed that may or may not be relevant,

we are from northern ireland