Seriously ill man challenges UK government for cutting his social benefit
A British man suffering from various diseases and whose weight plummeted to six stone (38 kg) was denied benefits and deemed fit for work, despite the fact that he could barely walk.
Stephen Smith, 64, from Liverpool, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis, an enlarged prostate and uses a colostomy bag to go to the toilet.
The Department of Work and Pension (DWP) deemed him fit to work and cut his desperately-needed benefits.
The man was left starving over the Christmas holiday after he was forced to leave a governmental hospital, where he had been rushed to over health fears.
In a 2017 assessment, the DWP ruled that Smith was fit and capable of finding work and could not receive benefits allowed to people with health issues. He was told that he had to visit a job center every week if he wants to receive a £67-a-week allowance.
Doctors from Liverpool, where Smith lives, then helped him launch a legal battle against the DWP which he finally won as judges stated that his mobility and health problems, which included Osteoarthritis, severe breathing issues and enlarged prostate, meant he could not apply for work.
The case is the latest to come from thousands of complaints from people who have had their benefits cut under a new governments social care scheme, known as the Universal Credit.
The Conservative-led government continues to boast of the new system as the one which empowers Britons through offering them jobs and skills.
However, many have criticized the Universal Credit, which seeks to abolish old benefits and replace them with monthly payments to certain people, saying it is fueling poverty and homelessness in the UK.
Reports have suggested that thousands of people have become homeless in the country as a result of losing access to old benefits. Benefit claimants also believe that the technological complication of the new system has left them worst off compared to the older programs.
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