‘We have gone back 30 years’ leading carer tells conference
Jean Willson: ‘I dare not let up. I’ve been a pain in the backside of the authorities for 40 years and I intend to continue being so’
Published: 14 June, 2013
by PETER GRUNER
THE care worker who recently received Islington’s highest honour, Freedom of the Borough, launched an attack on government cuts she claimed are putting conditions for vulnerable people back 30 years.
Jean Willson OBE, 71, a government adviser for the disabled, warned that thousands of unpaid family carers in the borough are struggling to cope in the current recession, weighed down by benefit cuts and financial burdens.
She spoke out on Wednesday at an event for National Carers Week at Centre 404, for people with learning difficulties and their families, in Camden Road, Holloway.
Ms Willson said: “It’s tough enough for people who have the usual problems. But it is doubly hard for disabled people and their families.”
She hit out at the bedroom tax where families are having their benefits reduced if it is considered that they have a spare room.
Ms Willson’s own daughter, wheelchair-user Victoria, now 46, is so severely disabled that her only means of communication is by raising her eyebrows and making sounds.
Although Victoria needs 24-hour supervised care, she is able to live “independently” in a specially converted home on Priory Green Peabody estate at King’s Cross.
“They wanted to know how many rooms Victoria has,” Ms Willson said. “I argued that she needs her extra room when care workers stay overnight. They seem to have accepted that for now.”
Four families with disabled children in Islington are currently challenging the bedroom tax rules in court.
Ms Willson added: “It’s absolute ridiculous. We’ve gone back 30 years. How can they do this to disadvantaged people? It’s not our fault that our sons and daughters are born with a disability.”
With crippling bills to pay, Centre 404 are also running money workshops for families. “We try not to use the debt word because it is so scary.”
Then there’s hate crime, with vulnerable people often targets for abuse. “It seems to have got worse in recent years,” Ms Willson said.
She thought she might at least be able to wind down now she’s in her 70s.
“Not a chance. I dare not let up. I’ve been a pain in the backside of the authorities for 40 years and I intend to continue being so.”
