Yahoo News Benefits Assesor Nurse Sacked For Slating Disabled “Scrounger” On Social Media
A disability benefits assessor has been sacked for posting abuse about disabled claimants on social media.
The unnamed nurse - whose job it was to decide if people should receive benefits - was dismissed after branding claimants “scroungers”.
Capita, a company which assesses claimants for the government, confirmed the nurse was sacked two weeks ago.
The posts were found on Facebook by Sarah Goldstein, 24, whose application for personal independence payments (PIPs) had just been rejected.
Sarah has fibromyalgia and Raynaud’s phenomenon, as well as suffering from chronic anxiety, migraines and depression.
After going on social media to check the nurse’s profile, Sarah, who lives in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, with husband Jay and daughter AJ, 13-months, was shocked to discover the comments from July 2014.
In one post the assessor attacked a claimant who had lost two legs as a child and had appeared on a programme about benefits.
She said “why do our taxes have to keep them”, adding that he should “get a job fitting carpets”.
In another post she said that she “would like to catapult the scrounger back to whatever sh*thole he came from”.
Sarah was “shocked and horrified” by the posts, which were written a few months after the nurse started working for Capita.
She said: “We want people to understand the struggle people go through with this new benefits system - people need to see that people like this is what we’re up against.
"Disabled people are human beings, and we deserve a good quality of life - we don’t deserve to be treated like this. This nurse clearly isn’t the best person for that kind of job.
Jay said he was glad Capita had done “the right thing” by sacking the nurse, adding: “We feel a tiny bit of justice has been done.”
Credit: Caters
