Its a sad thing to say but it seems that earning money illegally is becoming easy these days.
One such method I’ve noticed, and it really upsets me, is disability fraud.
Personally I think it is right that we, as a society, look after those who are unfortunate to be disabled.
However, there are many individuals who feel that it is ok to play the system and claim benefits for disabilities they do not have.
In both legal and medical terms disability does not mean that a person is physically handicapped.
Just because a person is able to do all the things that a normal man can do it does not really imply that the person is not disabled.
There are a number of medical conditions which are not physically visible but they are still termed as disabilities.
Invisible Disabilities
Such disabilities are known as “invisible disabilities”.
This is the area in which criminals are taking advantage of the system and literally cashing in.
Below are some of the common types of invisible disabilities -
- Chronic Dizziness: This kind of disability is related to an improper functioning of the inner ear. Such a problem would cause problems to a person whilst performing some of the basic tasks like walking, sleeping or working.
- Chronic Fatigue: If a person does not feel like working and always feels totally tired, then he might be suffering from Chronic Fatigue. This can have a very negative impact on the person’s daily life routine.
- Mental Illness: Some forms of this disability can make a person mentally so vulnerable that they find basic and common daily tasks very had to perform. Disabilities like agoraphobia, depression, lack of concentration and schizophrenia are categorized under mental illness.
- Chronic Pain: Some bone or physical injuries and back problems can lead to chronic pain. This kind of pain or disability might not be visible to everybody but people linked with the medical fraternity will easily detect such disability.
Of course there are a great many people with invisible disabilities such as those above who are perfectly genuine and who are suffering.
Unfortunately, however, there are also many people who fake such conditions for financial gain.
Types Of Disability Fraud
Below are some of most common types of disability fraud -
- Doing legitimate work despite claiming to be suffering from disability: It has been found that people suffering from various invisible disabilities are working in jobs they claim they cannot do while enjoying the benefits offered for the disabled.
- Pretending to be suffering from any kind of Injury: People do pretend to be suffering from some kinds of illness and even doctors can’t prove that wrong. So they intentionally pretend to be disabled, in order to enjoy the benefits offered to them by various agencies.
- Continuing to claim benefits even after recovering from disability: Not all disabilities are permanent and people are cured every day. Some, however, continue to claim benefits for many years afterwards regardless though.
Tackling Disability Fraud
Disability fraud is extremely hard to prove and prosecute.
Many governments have already initiated various methods to tackle disability fraud but cynics, such as myself, wonder if they are doing enough, especially when recategorising such people as being merely unemployed could prove detrimental to their boasts of keeping jobless figures to a minimum.
Doctors cannot always detect whether a claim of disability is genuine or not and the politically correct society we live in now means you really ought to be very careful about questioning whether benefits claimants are legitimate or not.
Having said that, here in the UK we are encouraged to grass on our neighbours (another ploy designed to destroy society no doubt) but could you tell whether the disabled person living next door to you was faking it?
Probably not.
I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that we need to cut out disability fraud.
I’m of the opinion that far too many people claim benefits for fake disabilities in order to avoid working and we really ought to get them off their lazy backsides and into work so that they can contribute to society, allowing us to divert the money saved to those who really need it.