Wednesday 12 October 2011

ATOS DON'T GIVE A TOSS


The organisation which has smeared thousands of ­disabled people in the UK by declaring them to be incorrectly claiming Incapacity Benefits is, would you credit it, sponsoring next year’s London Paralympics. 

As you know, the French firm, Atos ­Healthcare, has assessed 1.3million people on IB and concluded that 150,000 of them were capable of working. However, on appeal, vast numbers of decisions have been overturned because of incompetence and target hunting by the company. A Commons select committee has said that Atos Healthcare's “unacceptable” errors had cost the country over £30million.

Quite rightly disabled campaigners are threatening to boycott of the Paralympic Games because of Atos's involvment in them. Clearly a company which causes so much distress to so many sick people is not appropriate for this kind of deal. The very notion that they are pouring money they have taken from us as taxpayers for making a mess of disabled people's rights, and putting it back into the games in the expectation of some sort of kudos, is sickening.

Atos , of course, seemingly living in some parallel universe where costing the UK £30 million because of ineptitude is of no import, and making disabled people's lives hell as they struggle through appeals for money which was always there's by right is a small operational matter, say that they are proud of their work conducting "objective assessments" and proud of their role as a sponsor for the Games. Well, they must be the only ones.

Worse than just being a sponsor is the fact that the man who, until recently oversaw this shambles, 
was last month appointed to the board of the International Paralympic Committee. The IPC said Monsieur Bernard Bourigeaud was a long-time supporter of the Paralympic movement and that his knowledge and experience would be of great benefit to them "going forward". Not going back then, that's a start.  Stupid expression!

John McArdle, a well known disablement campaigner, has  called Atos’s involvement an “insult” and I couldn't agree more. Yet another nail in the coffin of this ill-judged vanity project that is the London Olympic Games and Paralympics.

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9 comments:

  1. Are Atos 'Healthcare' not part of the group that are providing 'technology' for the 2012 Olympics?

    They must have friends in high places?

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  2. Yes John, I think that that's right.

    Clearly they have friends in high places, across the political divide too, I would imagine.

    I dare say someone important's brother is a director (like the British Nuclear Fuels).

    I dare say they will be checking up on the athletes to make sure that not one of them gets any kind of benefit.

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  3. Why hasn't Jenni Murray not taken this up? Shame on her!

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  4. It's not against the SNP Marcia... she's not interested in the English government's idiotic behaviour, just the evil SNP death eaters.

    I think Jenni Murray is some plump feminist Dame of the British Empire, just like Sir Generation Game...

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  5. The Olympics is a waste of Scots taxpayers money.

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  6. Dean,

    Westminster is a waste of Scots taxpayer's money. It's good to note that the oil will not run out in the short term so that Foulkes, Martin and co don't have to take a pay-cut or have to skimp on their expenses.

    John the ranter.

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  7. It's a waste of borrowed money Dean.

    I see another vast amount is to be wasted on the stadium to convert it so that it can be used for football and running, as promised in the bid, as a legacy.

    It's good that we are so rich as to be able to afford this.

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  8. Agreed mr Ranter.

    I wish that the boundary commission had decided that there would be no need to Scots to send people to Westminster.

    The ones we send make no difference. Even if they could get together and vote, which will never happen, the 59, or 50 votes wouldn't make a scrap of difference to what Downing Street had decided.

    It is a total waste of their time being there.

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