Swami Vismay’s Death starts National Protest by Ken Loach

Ken Loach, famous film Director,  joins vigil for ‘fit to work’ Swami Vismay, who died on his way home from a London  job centre.

Ken Loach addressed the vigil for Swami Vismay in Kentish Town

AWARD-winning film director Ken Loach appeared at a vigil yesterday (Wednesday) for Swami Vismay ruled “fit for work” who died from a heart attack on his way home from the Kentish Town Job Centre. And he likened the case to the desperate central character in his campaigning film,  I, Daniel Blake.

Vismay, 56, who had multiple health problems, died in the street after leaving the Jobcentre in Kentish Town Road, Kentish Town, two weeks ago.

Around 50 people were outside the centre, alongside Mr Loach and shadow labour chancellor John McDonnell, yesterday afternoon to mark his passing.

Vismay was ruled “fit to work” in July and his incapacity benefit – now known as Employment Support Allowance – was cut. He was awaiting the outcome of an appeal at the time of his death.

Asked if he recognised comparisons that had been made of Vismay to the eponymous character Daniel Blake, who dies while attending a review of his fit-to-work ruling, Mr Loach told the New Journal: “Absolutely. He was a man of similar age, he was a man who has worked almost all his life. It’s absolutely comparable,  and it’s a monstrous injustice and the government should be driven from office. If they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re not competent. If they do know, they’re not fit.”

The newly-appointed shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, Debbie Abrahams MP, was also at the vigil organised by Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group and WinVisible disabled women’s group. The crowd called for an end to cuts to the welfare budget and chanted “we are all Vismay”.

Vismay (Lawrence Bond), who lived in Gillies Street, Kentish Town, suffered from prolonged health problems, including mobility and breathing difficulties associated with being overweight. He was ordered to attend a “mandatory reconsideration” last year and his support was removed following a “work capability assessment”, which was carried out by private American firm Maximus. As a result, he was forced to sign on and search for work. He collapsed and died in Highgate Road on January 12, shortly after leaving a Jobcentre appointment.

Addressing a crowd of around 50 people, Mr Loach said the government must “end the assessments by Maximus or whatever bunch of profit-making villains are put in their place”.

Swami Vismay

The NHS, not profit-making multinational firms, should instead be funded to carry out the assessments, he said.

Vismay’s sister, Iris Green, told the New Journal last week that her brother had been employed since the age of 16 until two years ago when “his weight and unfitness made him unemployable”. She said his health deteriorated while he was unemployed, adding: “His anxiety was getting worse as he could not pay bills and was afraid to leave home to go to the shops. Two referrals his GP had made for mental health services had been lost and he said he felt annoyed about that.”

Vismay’s friend, sannyasin Laila Victory, who joined the vigil, said: “Lawrence was a lovely man – a very good friend to a lot of people, a very good friend to me and my son, always very supportive to people.

“It’s a great shame that he didn’t get the help that he needed and deserved. Before Vismay died, apparently he was trying to get an assessment to get some mental health services and he was finding it really difficult, and the anxiety of all this, I’m sure, really didn’t help.”

Ms Abrahams told the crowd: “Surely the government should have the message by now. It’s absolutely unacceptable, that a state policy around work capability assessments, around sanctions, is causing the death of people.”

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said in response to news of Vismay’s death last week: “The local Jobcentre had been supporting him and our sympathies are with his family at this difficult time.

“ESA decisions are made following a thorough assessment and after considering all of the evidence, including that provided by a claimant’s doctor or other medical professionals. Anyone who disagrees with a decision can ask for it to be reconsidered, and if they still disagree they can appeal.”

An inquest, due to take place at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in June, will examine the circumstances surrounding Vismay’s death.

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26 Responses to Swami Vismay’s Death starts National Protest by Ken Loach

  1. sw. veet (francesco) says:

    I am ready to die rather than accept this rotten system of global exploitation of man by man – no, now it is even more sophisticated and impersonal: the exploitation of the real economy by the financial economy.

    In my country they told us that we needed a single currency (euro) to be strong and competitive against China. Well, now if you have a job you have to work like the Chinese.

    They are few (elite) and have the banks and the arms industry, we are many and divided by religions and cultures but exploited in the same way.

    I wonder if we will find a way to oppose this silent violence, that kills us in our isolation, without getting lost in it.

    Btw, in Italy the reaction to the ‘rebellion’ of those who have not obeyed the mainstream media calling to vote for Clinton is beginning to be seen.

    Re a web site (Byoblu) of an independent activist, Claudio Messora, Google notified, without appeal, that it would be taken off the ‘AdSense’ programme that ensured advertising revenue. He is accused of Fake News – and what he did to deserve it? He has posted a video of an Italian politician who spoke against the referendum on the euro.

    On the first video you have subtitles
    http://egodellarete.blogspot.nl/

    El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

    VF

    MOD:
    PLEASE TRANSLATE THE LAST SENTENCE, VF!

  2. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    Yes, Friends,
    Too bad and sad that Vismay couldn´t stay any longer at the Humaniversity ´Trust´, where he felt a belonging and to be amongst friends. Maybe he couldn´t pay the fee anymore? Even a minimum?

    And yes, I also did watch the art work as documentary film Ken Loach has contributed with ‘I, Daniel Blake’, and it was like watching quite some average ‘day to days’ on a cinema screen but without any painkiller pics or ideology supply.

    What one calls ‘survival of the fittest’ goes in ever changing rounds, doesn´t it?

    And after bragging about some latest ‘family business legal rounds’ for top players of the games, presented here for discussion in the last thread topic, we are in the ‘yo-yo’, jumping back to some realities, which may concern more friends than one likes to acknowledge and/or deal with.

    Pretty sure that Arpana can find a quote also about that, or Lokesh can easily present his skillful indifference in well-being; but the point I want to make here is that we don´t really know, also in the Sannyas Sangha, how to deal with real poverty, real old age, real sickness and death (besides a paid human growth seminar).

    Madhu

    • Parmartha says:

      Thanks for your contribution, Madhu.
      Within Sannyas I think your compatriot Veetman proves a very good servant of the sannyas community on the death front:
      See the link below where Pari (who is himself now dead) sits with his friend who is dying with the help of the Bardo tapes from Veetman.

      http://www.sannyasnews.com/Articles/Osho%20Bardo.html

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        Thank you for the link, Parmartha, and the most important in it (for me) is that Pari has been SITTING with his friend, Anna, while they both were listening to the tape Veetman has contributed.

        As also very important is Anna´s clear insight in discerning the Bardo of Living and the Bardo of Dying needs to get mentioned again and also re this thread topic.

        The point is, to have a friend or friends by your very side in crucial moments. Or not.

        Anyway, any setting-situation happening by life itself has to be accepted, doesn’t it?

        I knew Veetman personally from ages and ages ago (before he started his Institute and started to wear ´a black robe´ (so to say).

        Beauty, to feel you warm heart, in response to the news-no-news about late Vismay, Parmartha, and same thanks goes to Arpana today.

        Madhu

    • Parmartha says:

      I knew Vismay personally, and he was a good guy who had his problems, and no-one would deny that. But he had a brave and great heart.

      He was addicted to food, and this may be a problem of varying depths amongst us all. However, I have sometimes felt that the shores of some therapies popular within Sannyas don’t seem to touch such addictions, even when they are addiction-orientated. Maybe no therapies can reach such things, though I am told that more simple therapies like cognitive behaviour therapy do have some good results there.

      • Arpana says:

        I have wondered if it’s the nature of being human to be addicted to something or other, but some addictions are life-enhancing and some are not.

        Bloody awful when someone you know goes through something like this. Bloody rotten for them. Just bloody rotten.

      • kusum says:

        There are some surgeries where the surgeon reduces the size of the stomach inside (gastric sleeve surgery etc.) & it gives the stomach feeling full & the person does not eat much. Some have this as weight-loss surgery as well.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Tooooo late, Kusum, as far as this topic thread and human being to serve it is concerned.

          And you know what? For this kind of procedure (and admin. ordering settlement in medicine-tech), our lovely late fellow-traveller was much too small yet (!), you won´t believe it….

          Madhu

  3. Klaus says:

    This is very sad. Farewell to you, Swami Vismay!

    I have watched the history of the outsourcing of these assessements by the British government to external service providers. Before this American firm ‘Maximus’ these assessments had been outsourced to ‘ATOS’. See a relevant article in the Guardian to this effect:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/27/atos-quite-work-capability-assessment-contract-early

    The assessements seem to have led to so many suicides.

    Really a very, very sad trait of our modern societies. This should not happen in this way.

  4. swamishanti says:

    Ian Duncan Smith was the government minister and former head of the DWP responsible for introducing these cuts to the poorest and most vulnerable.

  5. shantam prem says:

    Best way is to be reborn as Muslim and enter Europe as Queen´s guest.

    I see in the city and trams, happiest people are the newly arrived pretending refugees, many from Africa, Arabic world and Pakistan. Their jeans and branded shoes and new mobiles and some cash from job centre and emotional well-being taken care by volunteers of charitable Christian organisations.

    There is a joke:
    One immigrant comes and wishes an Apple phone, within days he gets one. He wishes long car and within weeks he has one, he wishes a well furnished flat and it is sanctioned. He is amazed by his luck. Now he wishes to be German and surprisingly, things are taken away through official letters he can´t even understand the pretext.

    He prays and ask for divine answer. Voice says, “You wanted to be German. Now you live how Germans live.”

  6. sw. veet (francesco) says:

    Madhu dagmar_frantzen,

    Although I do not know about the particular case you’re talking about, I do not see rich people here and you have to work hard to stay in the way that the TC could work.

    If you prefer to debate with me or start the war between the poor instead of looking at the root cause of this systemic crisis in which we are immersed (it seems to me that you too are not a rentier) I leave you alone in that.

    Ciao,

    VF

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      “If you prefer to debate with me or start the war between the poor instead of looking at the root cause of this systemic crisis in which we are immersed (it seems to me that you too are not a rentier) I leave you alone in that.” ( Veet Francesco)

      Simply can´t grasp at all what you are up to, addressing me like this, Veet.

      Madhu

  7. kusum says:

    People with low income in western countries should spend few months a year in third world countries where living expense is not much.

    And it is also nice to see smiles on people who don’t have much material possessions but are happy just to be alive. I have seen more festivals & celebrations & smiles in third world countries then western countries, even in chaos.

    • shantam prem says:

      Kusum, this suggestion of yours would have been a reality if Osho Commune International was still existing. I can imagine, thousands of sannyasins now in their twilight years enjoying sunshine of life with best comforts at approx. 4 times less money.

      It is a sad story, quite a lot of sannyasins who have lived their productive years around Osho are living a lonely existence on the fringe side of the society.

  8. sw. veet (francesco) says:

    Madhu,

    Re “we don´t really know, also in the Sannyas Sangha, how to deal with real poverty, real old age, real sickness and death (besides a paid human growth seminar).”
    I’m sorry, I thought you were grasping for an answer, with that “we”.

    No, you already know the answer and it is not the same of which I speak above (I’m welcomed here, like you I can leave a comment, which you’re free to ignore but conscious to do it when you choose the pronouns).

    Perhaps you would rule who is inside and who is outside the Sangha – not really an invitation to unity but better than nothing.

    See, unlike Lokesh, I have not a lot of ‘I’ (and related superegos, I suppose). With this ‘I’ I tell you that you have my support, beyond the Sangha, like a elder (?) Sister and Companion who shares my (our?) condition of subjection to a system that preaches austerity for the many for the benefit of few (busy in selling weapons and toxic financial products).

    It is the same ‘I’ that makes me react when you call me Berluscones, but for a reason you might not suspect:
    Like a jerk for twenty years, thanks to my laziness, I have been convinced by the propaganda of political correctness that the danger of democracy in my country was this little Trump made in Milan. While the others, the less worse, those serious and faithful to their wives, they signed all agreements and European Treaties that have delivered monetary sovereignty, and in fact economic and political, to the private power of the bankers.

    Do you understand what little and big Trump are for? To give us the illusion of democratic choice while in reality are options of a same drawing, changing only the puppets.

    However, even if you had voted Angela Dorothea to me it is not a good reason not to love you, and I hope for you that it is not a good reason to hate me if I mention the German attitude to make things work, even the most inhuman, such as this Euro-pa.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMujbWGZaZc

    Ciao

    VF

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Thank you, Veet Francesco, for taking some effort, sharing with me (and all) to what interpretations the few comments of mine (as others?), you read here, have led you.

      Need some more space-time to relate to that in specifics.

      Just for now, like to share with you, that what I love about this UK website, that it’s not one of numerous political parties, be it partisan, guerillas, or of some ruling parties.

      For me, it is a website of a Mystery School and its friends, walking on their bumpy or not so bumpy ways from HERE to HERE; and as the Master once put it:
      “Being in the market place, but not being out of it.”

      More easily said than accomplished….and that – amongst one´s own striving and effort – a Sangha is for: as a gathering of friends as a support for (individually) remembering THIS.

      I will answer to your long comment (at 2.16 am) later again, when other words might be coming to me.

      Have a nice day.

      Madhu

  9. bodhi heeren says:

    The same in ‘my’ country, Denmark. As a professor recently wrote in an article here: people are denied the right to be sick. And ofc, it’s all part of an ideology that says that all unemployed people are lazy and parasites.

    Difficult to see the big spiritual revolution being just around the corner as some new age friends talk about. It seems rather that all human decency is about to be tossed away. And with Trump & Co. preparing all kinds of horrors – maybe even nuclear wars – it could very well be that Osho was right when he said that “the old man” is heading for global suicide.

    But then let me annoy the pundits here by adding that this does not in anyway alter the underlying basic Perfection.

  10. shantam prem says:

    “And with Trump & Co. preparing all kinds of horrors – maybe even nuclear wars – it could very well be that Osho was right when he said that “the old man” is heading for global suicide.”

    Bodhi Heeren, why don´t you write an article over old sannyas mind´s morbid fascination with global suicide?

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