Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Charity and Benefits

Our social worker at the RMCH, T., working for Clic Sargeant, has been marvellous. She's arranged us bits of money here and there ... every bit has helped.

A.& H. suggested we should apply to the Samantha Jones Trust, a young peoples cancer charity, for a computer – so I could communicate with Kezia, Nanda and Jaime by VoIP and save on our telephone bills. So T. tried for us.

H.'s application was successful. Lucia, I know was successful ... but ours wasn't. Ours wasn't - as they figure she's only 2 ½ and doesn't know how to operate a computer ... T. tells me they have a policy of no computer grants to under 5 year olds.

Operating a computer is not important – she needs to see and talk to her dad, I need to see and talk to her.

Anyway, a friend here, another T. has given us a laptop with a wireless card which I took over to the UK, I bought a webcam at Christmas, and hopefully we'll all talk by the Internet soon and save lots on phone bills!

SJT – look I know you're only meant to benefit the patient ... but surely father talking to patient daughter comes under that ...


Nanda has “no recourse to public funds” as a condition of her visa. Therefore Kezia cannot get any benefits (e.g. Child Benefit and Disability Living Allowance). If I had been resident in the UK for six months, she could. That she has been resident in the UK for over six months doesn't count. I think this is pretty stupid particularly in the case of Child Benefit which aims, I believe, to umm ... benefit the child!

Never mind.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

its a real shame about the samantha jones trust refusing your claim, do they know your circumstances? If I was the prime minister I'd give all of us patients more money, regardless of where we come from.