Disabled people are 'invisible victims' of pandemic with too many 'abused' and spat on

People with disabilities have been described as “the invisible victims” of the coronavirus, accounting for six out of 10 COVID-19 deaths, MPs in a debate in Parliament heard.

While 14 million people live with a disability in the UK – making them the largest minority group in the country - many feel “forgotton” according to Dr Lisa Cameron, the chair of the disability all party parliamentary group.

Speaking at the ‘Disability inclusive COVID-19 response’ debate in Westminster on 15 October, the MP for the SNP’s East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow constituency, said coronavirus pandemic restrictions impacted "whether care services, that many rely on day in day out are available to them".

’The virus does discriminate’

Some 59 per cent of people who died of COVID-19 during March to July were disabled people.

There were more than 27,500 coronavirus-related deaths of disabled people between 2 March and 14 July in England and Wales, compared with 18,800 of non-disabled people, according to the Office for National Statistics.

During the debate, Andy Carter, Conservative MP for Warrington South said: “The risk of hospitalisation, ventilation and sadly death is much much higher if you’re suffering from an underlying health condition or a disability. I’m afraid the virus does discriminate.”

People with health conditions and disabilities are often exempt from wearing face masks but disability APPG chair Dr Lisa Cameron said people with disabilities from across the UK “tell me they have been verbally abused or harassed in the community because they were not wearing a face mask. They’ve since lost all confidence in going out.”

Joy Morrissey, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield, said many hearing-impaired people were no longer able to lip read because of the non-transparent masks covering many people’s faces.

“We have heard reports of hearing-impaired people being abused, kicked, spat on because they couldn’t hear and they couldn’t see that someone is even speaking to them”, she said.

After months of shielding, many people with disabilities are finding it tough to go out at all due to public ignorance. Other MPs spoke of partially-sighted people being “yelled at” for not keeping their distance during the pandemic and elderly customers struggling to hear "the muffled voices" of shop staff behind their masks.

Dr Lisa Cameron called for the disabilities minister Justin Tomlinson to support a public awareness campaign about hidden disabilities and mask exemptions.

’I feel suicidal’

Research by the disability charity Leonard Cheshire has revealed 55 per cent of disabled people receiving social care have experienced changes to their care packages since April. Some 18 per cent reported difficulties in even accessing food.

A disabled campaigner is now on hunger strike in response to the failure of his local authority to provide him with the care package he needs to “just live as a human being”. Jimmy Telesford who lives in Lambeth in London believes there is a need for major reform of what he calls an “abusive” social care system.

Dr Cameron also called out the "significant consequences" of the Coronavirus Act on the health and care provisions afforded to people with disabilities over the last six months.

The APPG disability chair quoted the words of one person needing care who said: “I have gone from 20 hours of care to zero. I am now bedbound completely because of this."

Another told her: “I am so lonely and feel so depressed, I feel suicidal.”

The Care Act 2014 sets out how England’s adult social care should be provided, but the government’s response to the pandemic led to temporary changes called ‘easements’ to the Care Act which took effect on 31 March.

The ‘easements’, enacted by the Coronavirus Act 2020, were recently voted for by MPs and allow councils to temporarily suspend legal duties to assess needs, develop or review care and support plans, carry out financial assessments and meet eligible needs for the disabled and others.

The easements are intended to allow councils to prioritise care and support to meet urgent and acute needs.

These easements should be repealed and "never repeated" said Daisy Cooper Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans, who described herself as an MP with a "hidden disability".

Joy Morrissey also highlighted how the national lockdown meant the visually impaired could no longer bring a sighted ‘companion’ with them to the supermarket and were unable to physically "feel their way" around a shop or get a food delivery.

Without their sighted companion, she said some people were "too afraid to go to their GP appointments". She called for supermarkets, GP surgeries and hospitals in areas with tier 2 and tier 3 lockdown restrictions to allow visually-impaired people to bring a sighted companion with them.

People quit jobs to care for loved ones

Ms Morrissey said that for people living with someone with complex disabilities or severe autism, “day centres are a lifeline to the family” but her local daycentre closed during the pandemic and families were left unable to cope in the end. It may be for “eight hours a day or an hour” but it is the only time the carer has to “take a shower or do anything”, she said.

Lockdown handed unpaid carers 24/7 care of their loved ones and when the public were urged by the government at the end of Summer to go back to work, many people were instead forced to quit their jobs to give full-time care for loved ones.

Disability minister says Coronavirus Act easements are 'last resort'

The charity Mencap has revealed almost seven in 10 people with a learning disability have experienced their care package being reduced or cut completely during the lockdown period. The Disability Law Service has called this illegal.

Chair of the disability APPG, Lisa Cameron urged the government to switch off the Care Act easements “as soon as it is safely possible” and urged the government to give reassurance “that the high bar set in these easements will not become the new normal in terms of social care provided to those with disabilities”.

In response to MPs’ calls to repeal care easements, Justin Tomlinson, minister for disabled people told them: “There were only eight of the 151 local authorities who used it. It is meant to be a last resort.

”It isn’t carte blanche, it’s underpinned by the Human Rights Act but the broad principle is if COVID causes you to have such a depleted workforce, you do not want to be in a situation where immediate urgent care in somebody’s home is missed for the sake of filling in an annual report.

“That’s an extreme example but that is the sort of reason why, with great reluctance, we all collectively voted for that. Absolutely, the moment we don’t need those emergency powers they should go.

“We are absolutely determined that there will be an inclusive recovery. COVID has given us unprecedented challenged but we will not be diminished in our ambition to improve the lives of disabled people”.

A petition asking Heath Secretary Matt Hancock to abolish the Coronavirus Act’s easements has been started.

To sign the petition click here.