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When the Administration is crueler than cancer – testimonials from cancer patients

Cancer patients: case evaluators are urged to read medical reports

The message arrived at nine o’clock on a Tuesday evening. Completely unexpectedly, explains a cancer patient, who prefers not to provide her name. The National Institute of Social Security informed her that three days later, on Friday, she would have to return to work. For years, since cancer entered her life, sleep has become a fantasy. That night it was even more complicated. And the fact is that this woman can hardly move. This is what her medical reports state, detailing that she cannot spend much time sitting. Nor standing. And that the pain is constant. Not to mention all the consequences that the disease is leaving on her mental health. Her daily life is already torture. Getting out of bed every day is a nightmare. Like going to work. “I can’t drive, my whole body hurts constantly, so I’m waiting for an appointment at the Pain Unit, I have terrible mobility and headaches, although I make an effort every day, I haven’t recovered,” she details. This woman was diagnosed with breast cancer. After some time, metastasis was detected. Two years ago she had to have a vertebra removed in an operation that she describes as “brutal”, which she underwent off the island and thanks to which she can “still” walk.

The sick woman has exhausted the one and a half years of sick leave that Social Security provides as a maximum. After receiving that text message, she hurriedly filed a claim, after which her return to work was postponed for six months. “When I arrived for the check-up, despite all the medical reports from various specialists, they told me that I was fine and that I could work,” says the woman, who, unable to believe what they were telling her, left convinced that no one had read all the medical documentation she had submitted. “You have cancer, with metastasis, everything hurts from the moment you get up and those who should help you, instead of doing so, push you further under the water”, she reflects.

Cancer patients forced to claim disability in court

This woman has had no choice but to resort to the courts to claim her disability. Something “all too common”, says the spokeswoman in the Pitiusas of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Association, Susana Ribas. She had to do it herself, she recalls. After months of fighting with the Administration, she was granted total disability, but not absolute disability, which is what she was requesting, given the conditions in which she finds herself due to the disease she suffers. “Absolute disability means that you cannot work and you receive 100% of your basic salary. The total disability decrees that you cannot do the job you had before the disease, but you can do another job adapted to your situation, and you receive 55% of your basic salary,” she says. “I worked as an administrative assistant at the Sant Josep City Council. I didn’t have a physically demanding job, I wasn’t a cleaner or a chambermaid, I was an administrator! If I couldn’t even do that job, what was I going to do?” says the spokeswoman of the association. She confesses that she can’t understand the issue. She cannot understand that the Administration, which should be there to help them in a delicate and painful situation, makes everything even more complicated. Both Ribas and the cancer patient who is now fighting for her disability, say that they feel they are being treated as if they were trying to defraud  Social Security: “They make you feel very bad.”.

For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.

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