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sparksinthenight · 1 year

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Ways People Will be Killed by Climate Change:

-Thirst: Amnesty International says 2 billion people will see their water access severely and incredibly diminished. In the Horn of Africa, people are only finding 1/4 of the water they had before.

-Hunger: Many people will die from malnutrition. Many more people will die from chronic undernutrition. So many sources I have read have stated that food supplies will greatly diminish due to climate change. This will be due to an increase in floods, rising sea levels eating up land and causing salinity in the dry land that remains, increased droughts, dry places getting too dry and wet places getting too wet, overheating, storms, extreme weather, unpredictable weather, a decrease in soil fertility caused by loss in biodiversity, cold snaps coming earlier and earlier into the growing season in northern countries, erosion washing away farmland, increased pests due to the inability of the environment to control pests, the list goes on. 345 million people worldwide already have acute (not moderate, not high, but acute) levels of hunger, in large part due to climate change.

-Heat Waves: Over 1.5 billion people live in places where they constantly face the upper limits of heat that the human body can tolerate. As the earth warms, heat waves will become far more frequent and many people will die from them.

-Cold: As the polar vortex becomes looser and looser, many more people in the more northern parts of the world will be subjected to extreme cold and will die due to it, especially poor people.

-Natural Disasters: Storms, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides, and more will greatly increase in both frequency and severity, killing many people.

-Poverty: More than 100 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 alone due to climate change. By 2030 alone, and this number will only increase as time goes on. Note here that I said extreme poverty. Not multidimensional poverty, which is also very deadly and torturous, not acute multidimensional poverty, which is incredibly deadly, but extreme poverty, the worst form of poverty of all. Even greater numbers of people will be pushed into multidimensional and acute multidimensional poverty.

-War: As resources dwindle, there will be wars over the little remaining fertile land, the little remaining water, the few remaining pastures. These wars will also get many people killed.

-Far Right Extremism: Increased displacement, climate refugees (due to the crowding of people into areas that are still cool enough to live in, because many places, like Australia, will become too hot to sustain human life), decreased wealth flowing to the middle class, and other factors will increase fascism and far right ideology. This will lead to increased hate crimes, perhaps greatly so, and this will lead to more people dying.

-Epidemics, pandemics, new and old diseases: As the capacity of the environment to do pest control decreases, disease carriers will increase and diseases like malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and more will increase. As natural spaces get degraded, animals will become less healthy and diseases among animals will increase. This will lead to an increase in new diseases crossing over from animals to humans and to an increase in new diseases being created in animals.

-Homelessness: As more people lose their homes due to storms, floods, and other natural disasters, there will be an increase in homelessness and more people will die due to the risks of being unhoused.

-Suicide: The degradation in natural spaces will cause mental health among members of communities that are closely tied to the natural environment to worsen, leading to increased suicides. This will be amplified due to the fact that communities closely tied to the environment such as Indigenous communities and Afro-Latino communities are often already marginalized and already face risks to their mental health. Like for example most members of the religion I am a part of already have at least one mental illness, and we rely on our connection to our Parent, the earth, to help us heal ourselves and build better lives for ourselves and our children. If the earth is dead many of us will be too. And we’re actually really privileged compared to say, Indigenous people (though some of us are Indigenous but not me), so imagine how much worse it would be to be part of an even more marginalized group that is closely tied to the environment. -Pollution: Increased use of fossil fuels will lead to increased air pollution. 9 million people already die each year due to air pollution. This will only grow worse as the amount of greenhouse gases and other harmful gases builds up in the atmosphere.

-Not Having Enough Nutrients: Calories aren’t the only thing the human body needs, nutrients are incredibly important too. The climate crisis will destroy the health of the ocean, due to acidification, rising water temperatures, and changed weather conditions and water flow. This will kill many fish. 3 billion people rely on fish for their main source of protein, because of how cheap it is compared to other sources of protein. Many of these people will not be able to get the fish they need and will lack the vital nutrients the fish provide them, which will lead to many deaths.

-Decrease in Social Cohesion: The natural environment teaches so many of us to be good people. Without healthy nature, many of the new generations won’t take into their souls the necessity of helping each other. If less of us help each other, more people will die. I’m going to get a bit religious now. So look at this paragraph with an open mind. The earth is our Parent, who we all came from and who we all live on. If the earth is unhealthy, the people will be too, and if the people are unhealthy, the earth will be too. Like any healthy parent-child relationship, our well-being is tied into Their well-being and Their well-being is tied into ours. But it’s not just my religion that says that the people need a healthy planet, it’s many religions all over the world. And it’s not just many religions all over the world that say this, but science says this too. So if you care about social justice at all, you have to care about climate change.

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 4 days

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By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: Apr 24, 2024

Top physicians, including former Harvard dean, say required course is riddled with dangerous falsehoods

Students in their first year of medical school typically learn what a healthy body looks like and how to keep it that way. At the University of California, Los Angeles, they learn that "fatphobia is medicine’s status quo" and that weight loss is a "hopeless endeavor."

Those are two of the more moderate claims made by Marquisele Mercedes, a self-described "fat liberationist," in an essay assigned to all first-year students in UCLA medical school’s mandatory "Structural Racism and Health Equity" class. Launched in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the course is required for all first-year medical students.

The Washington Free Beacon has obtained the entire syllabus for the course, along with slide decks and lecture prep from some of its most explosive sessions. The materials offer the fullest picture to date of what students at the elite medical school are learning and have dismayed prominent physicians—including those sympathetic to the goals of the class—who say UCLA has traded medicine for Marxism.

Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world’s foremost experts on obesity, said the curriculum "promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation."

UCLA "has centered this required course on a socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate," said Flier, who reviewed the full syllabus and several of the assigned readings. "As a longstanding medical educator, I found this course truly shocking."

One required reading lists "anti-capitalist politics" as a principle of "disability justice" and attacks the evils of "ableist heteropatriarchal capitalism." Others decry "racial capitalism," attack "growth-centered economic theories," and call for "moving beyond capitalism for our health."

The essay by Mercedes "describes how weight came to be pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms" and offers guidance on "resisting entrenched fat oppression," according to the course syllabus. Mercedes claims that "ob*sity" is a slur "used to exact violence on fat people"—particularly "Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people"—and offers a "fat ode to care" that students are instructed to analyze, taking note of which sections "most resonate with you."

"This is a profoundly misguided view of obesity, a complex medical disorder with major adverse health consequences for all racial and ethnic groups," Flier told the Free Beacon. "Promotion of these ignorant ideas to medical students without counterbalancing input from medical experts in the area is nothing less than pedagogical malpractice."

Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University, who has spent decades providing medical care to underserved communities, including in the South Side of Chicago, called the curriculum "nonsensical."

The relationship between health and social forces "should indeed be taught at medical school," Christakis wrote in an email, "but to have a mandatory course like this—so tendentious, sloganeering, incurious, and nonsensical—strikes me as embarrassing to UCLA."

UCLA did not respond to requests for comment.

Snapshots of the course have been leaking for months and left the school doing damage control as members of UCLA’s own faculty have spoken out against the curriculum. The most recent embarrassment came when a guest lecturer, Lisa Gray-Garcia, led students in chants of "Free, Free Palestine" after instructing them to kneel on the floor and pray to "Mama Earth." Lessons on "decolonization" and climate activism, as well as a classroom exercise that separated students by race, have also stirred controversy.

"There are areas where medicine and public health intersect with politics, and these require discussion and debate of conflicting viewpoints," Flier said. "That is distinct from education designed to ideologically indoctrinate physician-activists."

The mandatory class is part of a nationwide push by medical schools to integrate DEI content into their curricula—for residents as well as students— both by adding required courses and by changing the way traditional subjects are taught.

Stanford Medical School sprinkles lessons on "microaggressions," "structural racism," and "privilege" throughout its curriculum. Residents at Yale Medical School must complete an "Advocacy and Equity" sequence focused on "becoming physician advocates for health justice," while those in the infectious disease program must complete additional lessons on "Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism."

Columbia Medical School promotes an "Anti-bias and Inclusive" curriculum by encouraging educators to use "precise, accurate language." Instead of "women," guidelines for the curriculum state, faculty should refer to "people with uteruses."

The changes have been driven partly by the Association of American Medical Colleges—one of two groups that oversees the accrediting body for all U.S. medical schools—which in 2022 released a set of DEI "competencies" to guide curricula. Schools should teach students how to identify "systems of power, privilege, and oppression," the competencies state, and how to incorporate "knowledge of intersectionality" into clinical decision-making. Students should also be able to describe "public policy that promotes social justice" and demonstrate "moral courage" when faced with "microaggression."

The course at UCLA, which predates those accreditation standards, offers a preview of how DEI mandates could reshape medical education. It is littered with the lingo of progressive activism—"intersectionality" is a core value of the class, according to slides from the first session—and states outright that it is training doctors to become activists.

Students will "build critical consciousness" and move toward a "liberatory practice of medicine" by "focusing on praxis," according to the slides.

A section called "Our Hxstories" adds that "[h]ealth and medical practice are deeply impacted by racism and other intersectional structures of power, hierarchy, and oppression—all of which require humility, space and patience to understand, deconstruct, and eventually rectify."

That jargon reflects a worldview with clinical implications. In a unit on "abolitionist" health, which explores "alternatives to carceral systems in LA," students are assigned a paper that argues police should be removed from emergency rooms, where 55 percent of doctors say they’ve been assaulted—mostly by patients—and threats of violence are common, according to a 2022 survey from American College of Emergency Physicians. Other units discuss the "sickness of policing" and link "Queer liberation to liberation from the carceral state."

Flier said the syllabus was so bad it called for an investigation—and that anyone who signed off on it was unfit to make curricular decisions.

"Assuming the school’s dean," Steven Dubinett, a pulmonologist, "does not himself support this course as presented, it is his responsibility to review the course and the curriculum committee that approved it," Flier said. "If that body judged the course as appropriate, he should change its leadership and membership."

Dubinett did not respond to a request for comment.

One of the leaders of the course is Shamsher Samra, a professor of emergency medicine who in December signed an open letter endorsing "Palestinians’ right to return" and linking "health equity" to divestment from Israel.

"To authentically engage in antiracism health scholarship and practice is to explicitly name injustices tied to white supremacy and maintain an unapologetic commitment to antiracism praxis that transcends US borders," the letter reads. "As such, we, the undersigned,* unequivocally support a free Palestine and Palestinians’ right to return."

Samra, who in 2021 published a paper on "infrastructural violence and the health of border abolition," did not respond to a request for comment.

To the extent the course addresses actual medical debates, it frames contested treatments as settled science, omitting evidence that cuts against its activist narrative. A unit on "Queerness/Gender," for example, assigns readings on "gender self-determination" and "DIY transition," but does not include any of the research from Europe—such as the newly released Cass Report—that has led England and other countries to restrict hormone therapies for children.

"UCLA School of Medicine has decided to shield its students from the ongoing scientific debates playing out in Europe and even in the U.S.," said Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who researches gender medicine. "This is fundamentally unserious, and a stain on the school’s reputation."

The omission of inconvenient facts extends to a unit on Los Angeles's King/Drew hospital—nicknamed "Killer King" for its high rates of medical error—which the course promotes as an example of "community health."

Founded in 1972 as a response to the Watts riots, the hospital was majority black, had a documented policy of racial preferences, and was hit with several civil rights complaints by non-black doctors alleging discrimination in hiring and promotion.

It closed in 2007 after a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the Los Angeles Times found numerous cases in which patients had been killed or injured by clinical mistakes, such as overdosing a child with sedatives and giving cancer drugs to a meningitis patient. Efforts to reform the hospital stalled, according to the Times, because its board of supervisors feared coming across as racially insensitive.

The assigned readings on King/Drew do not include any of this history. Lecture slides instead praise the hospital for "suturing racial divides," but suggest that it may not have gone far enough. A focus on "producing highly talented and skilled physicians," one slide reads, "forced" King/Drew to hire doctors who were, "in some cases, not Black."

The curriculum is a "compilation of ideologic and anecdotal assertions that represent a warped view of medicine," said Stanley Goldfarb, the founder of the medical advocacy group Do No Harm and the father of Free Beacon chairman Michael Goldfarb. "American medical education needs to purge itself of this nonsense and treat every patient as an individual."

The slides suggest that "lived experiences," "historical memory," and "other knowledges" can constitute medical expertise.

Biomedical knowledge, after all, is "just one way of knowing, understanding, and experiencing health in the world."

The moral of the story is, if you see a UCLA medical school certificate on your doctor's wall, leave.

If you don't see this as the same thing as faith-healing, I don't know what to tell you.

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meadowsystem · 1 year

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💙 my heart is heavy with this one 💙

I have consistent nervous breakdowns over knowing this is my life. But yet I know many have no idea about the things I'm about to tell you.

Cyclic vomiting syndrome itself is not truely life-threatening but the complications that it creates can be.

I'M BEGGING FOR HELP!!

They do not provide enough accessible treatment. For complications I face from this rare disease.

I am unable to keep a job as I cannot work during vomiting episodes. Lasting anywhere between hours to days. Not including the recovery time needed after the episode is finished.

IT IS DEBILITATING.

Workplaces refuse to hire me when accomodations are asked due to this disability making me "unreliable". If you don't tell your employer and you miss too much work, your let go for being "unreliable". Finding a workplace who will accommodate you and provide consistent wages ... is unobtainable.

Accessing proper insurance coverage needed to make this rare disease manageable is unobtainable due to the plethora of needs we require to have met. Even when on welfare or disability.

Those who are not able to manage the triggers are pushed out of the workforce and forced to fight to get disability. Often unable to obtain federal disability as it isn't "as bad as cancer" as I was told... even with my other plethora of diagnoses that made my doctor feel it was my best course of action.

Not only dose this rare disease have complications of dehydration, damage to the esophagus and tooth decay. Most with this disease also suffer from other conditions (comorbidities), particularly other functional issues. Some of the common functional comorbidities to CVS include migraine headache, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, gastroparesis, depression, anxiety, POTS and/or other forms of dysautonomia as well as neuromuscular disease include intellectual disabilities, autism, seizures, and/or hypotonia. As well as mitochondria dysfunctions

Incase you don't know mitochondria dysfunctions means your body cannot efficiently turn sugar and oxygen into energy, so the cells do not work correctly. This can affect different parts of the body: the brain, kidneys, muscles, heart, eyes, ears, and others. Organ dysfunction can be a very real possibility. Organ failure is organ dysfunction to such a degree that normal homeostasis cannot be maintained without external clinical intervention.

I have been diagnosed with 8 and counting of the comorbidities. These comorbidities have their own comorbidities that have also been added to my list.

Many doctors are under educated on CVS. Often those with CVS are not properly diagnosed, even with symptoms at a young age.

Many doctors tell us to figure out our CVS triggers to manage the disease. In my case I have so many triggers due to my plethora of diagnoses/comorbidities that my CVS is incredibly difficult, even unrealistic to manage even with proper medical support. (So many overlapping, environmental, situational, medical, life triggers... so many triggers not on this list and still more unknown triggers)

THIS IS MY LIFE! THERE IS NO CURE.

They're are only underfunded small individual research/studies. They have not found a cure. We don't have proper support and thus we suffer. Look at this link ... the lack of information

https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/6230/cyclic-vomiting-syndrome

I SUFFER.

My disadvantages have been continually coming to light. My realization I likely won't be able to achieve basic life milestones has been heartbreaking.

Medically assisted suicide is easily achievable even in even minor cases of CVS. While there is little to no support and even less accessibility.

What options do those with this disease have?

Suffer or give up ...

I'd also like to finally note the journey to diagnosis is horrendous. Doctors diagnose cyclic vomiting syndrome based on family and medical history, a physical exam, pattern of symptoms, and medical tests. Your doctor should perform medical tests to rule out other diseases and conditions that may cause nausea and vomiting.

-add on the factors of age, ethnicity, gender, life style, fashion choices, preconceived assumptions ... the list goes on ... the journey to diagnosis often feels unbearable-

If you have read this please comment, I need some validation.

💙

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imkrisyoung · 6 months

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It would be easy to tell someone who’s emotionally hurting to “just go to therapy”, but not everyone has the privilege of finding a good, affordable therapist who gets them.

Please be mindful of that before you suggest therapy as a catch-all for mental health and healing.

#therapy #healing #recovery #mental health #mental health awareness #mental illness #equity #inequity #health disparities

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, You Have a Choice Now.

There are so many factors of our early lives we are not accountable for and yet accountable for what our lives have been. No one chooses their parents or their neighborhoods. No one chooses their histories or their race. No one chooses their class or the culture. But every one of these things decide the foundation of a person's life: the fortunes that fool them into safety, the wars that draft them into soldiers, the neurosis to haunt the rest of their days. It would almost seem that some lives are crafted with more care than others, but humanity is a genre composed by the personhood of every author... and your pen will never run dry as long as you breathe!

Your story is not over.

There's still so much that you can't control, but you were BORN with that pen in your hand. It's an unalienable possession of unimaginable proportions! Until now, you've dragged your pen through a maze of abuse, ink seeping behind like a blood trail, mapping the few ways to safety in a network of uncertainty. The ink may be dry...but CHANGE comes by the formation of intention. Every slosh can be shaded into the larger picture. Every scratch can hatched into greater depth. Fill these lines with nuance, with the emotional hues your reflection deserves. You are more than a writer...

You are an ARTIST.

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grunge-samurai · 9 months

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Not too sound like a self-centered, arrogant, narcissistic asshole (which, not gonna lie, I can tend to be) but I fucking HATE when I'm at a party or any other type of social gathering, and I walk past a girl that's eyeing me like candy, just for one of her friends to tell me "hey, she said she's interested in you”.

No, she's not. She's probably already fallen in love and imagined a life together with an idealized, tender but hyper-masculinized version of me where I'm the perfect boyfriend that checks all of her boxes. I'm just human. I have my flaws. Just because I may look like a hunk doesn't mean I am or even act like one. I'm a massive nerd with niche interests that get brushed off as weird or boring by 90% of people that are too caught up on my looks. Yeah, I exercise, take good care of myself, have "traditionally masculine" skills that I like to even out with what would be considered more "feminine" ones (like cooking or sewing), but so what?

I'm only a guy trying to find his own peace of mind. Don't come into my life trying to turn me into yours.

I feel for every woman that has to suffer from the same kind of shit from low self-steem guys with mommy issues that think they need a female figure to save them because they're too chicken shit to work on themselves and their issues.

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hiriajuu-suffering · 10 months

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youtube

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tmrasberry · 2 years

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EVENT: MICROAGGRESSIONS & MENTAL HEALTH - 8/31/22

EVENT: MICROAGGRESSIONS & MENTAL HEALTH – 8/31/22

I’m excited to take this time the day after my birthday to talk to folks about the impact of microaggressions on the mental health of Black and brown employees. Shout-out to Technical.ly for wanting to discuss this topic and for reaching out to me to do so. I hope you can join us. This workshop will cover what microaggressions are and how they impact the employee experience, including employee…

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#diversity #employment #equity #inclusion #mental health #microaggressions

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nicomochi · 2 years

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Surviving Capitalism: A Primer on What School Doesn't Teach You

#SurvivingCapitalism: A Primer on What School Doesn't Teach You | Capitalism is important for any youth to be aware about, as it underpins the way that society currently operates and thus we are all impacted by it. Written by a recovering overachiever.

I’ve been silent for a while after graduating in 2019. I thought that I would become firm in my values and identity in undergrad, however now that I am 3 years post-graduation, I realize that my growth was only beginning. There are identity structures that fell away, and others that are beginning to take their place. Some of these could only come to fruition through leaving the bubble that is the…

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#allyship #anti-capitalism #anti-oppression #BKTY #capitalism #education #equity #mental health #meritocracy #oppression #perfectionism #power #privilege #social justice #society #students #university

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stacylewisyoga · 5 days

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Yoga's Transformative Power Should Reach All Communities

Yoga is no stranger to luminous praises, seen as a practice that harmonizes the mind, body, and soul. Its reputation is not unfounded. The Global Study of Yoga, a groundbreaking venture that sketched the modern landscape of this ancient discipline, affirmed what practitioners have long attested to —Yoga acts as a powerful remedy for stress and mental health challenges. In our chaotic world,…

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#community #equity #mental health #unity

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storystitchers · 1 month

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StitchCast Studio LIVE! Tuesday, March 26

Catch StitchCast Studio LIVE! High Low Listening Room 3301 Washington Ave 63103 Tuesday, March 26 Mental Health Crisis Guest Hassan Shariff Doors Open 6:00 StitchCast and Art Interlude 6:30-8:00 Open Mic 8:00-9:00 Free and open to the public Cash bar ABOUT Watch and be a part of Story Stitchers live podcast discussions, presented on the state-of-the-arts stage of 3301 Washington Ave. Story…

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#addiction #podcast #youth #equity #IDEA #mental health #story #Story Stitchers #youth leadership

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meadowsystem · 1 year

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Today I realized I will be 26 soon.

Midnight thoughts...

*trigger warning*

Growing up I always thought I'd be working hard, owning a home and having children by now.

Today it occurred to me I might never have my "dreams" come true. I may never have a child nevermind children. I may never own a home. I will miss out in the many joy's I was told about growing up.

Stop thinking about the future they say. You'll only stray away. Caught up in the "what if's" and "could be's."

But what do I have to live for now, what do I have to look forward to.

Broken body and mind.

Disabled

Treated like gum on the bottom of the most expensive shoes.

Homelessness

If your not able to "keep up" in this life you'll be left behind. No one will remember you, they sweep it under the rug.

Silenced

Hide in the shadows of our great country. You must reach the bar. The bar set so high, add the disadvantage of disabilities and kiss your life goodbye.

Mask

You cannot show weakness, but show too much strength and they will knock you down.

Down

Down, until your voice is nothing more then a small bird. But when they close their windows the birds melody is no more.

Loneliness

Punished for doing anything differently even if it doesn't negativly affect someone else.

Struggle

Do not speak truth to those around you. If they don't know the truth they won't believe it. You only need to work harder. If you lack money to survive be better.

Darkness

Unknown to you or I. Don't go into the spotlight or the riches might consume you or blind the world from you.

Where to go from here?

How do I make things better with the world stacked against me. How do you live in a broken life while suffering.

Knowing that the lack of accessibility and lack of family wealth will decide my fate for me.

It is out of my control.

You were never given a choice. Without power and wealth you are at the hands of others.

Why do you treat disabilities this way?

Haven't we fought enough?

#life #mental health advocate #mental illness #ptsdlife #equity #disability #chronic illness #abnormal #smothering #slow death’#thoughts #bad day #this is depressing #not your fault #maid #no support #do better #love each other #you are loved

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tofueatingwokerati · 1 month

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TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️ sensitive topics covered as well as references to self harm.

I was moved to my present address for my safety after being stalked, harassed and assaulted by a council tenant.

The police did nothing after I reported him beyond a virtual slap on the wrist by a PCSO (and people wonder why women don’t report these crimes) and the council did equally nothing to safeguard me.

It took two years to get me moved and only after I went to the government ombudsman, and revealed to my housing officer I was a rape survivor, was anything finally done.

A council manger, Paul Hadley (since retired I’ve been informed) said to me that it was my fault, that I must have been doing something to encourage him and in front of an antisocial behaviour officer present that the council were “not responsible for their tenants behaviour” and proceeded to deny me any safeguarding.

More complaints and ombudsman interventions would follow. Battle for equality rights never ends if you’re a women and happen to also have disabilities.

In the two years it took to get me moved I’d been in A&E as a suicide risk and was regularly self harming. My disabilities worsened and I ended up needing crutches as the pain intensified. My hips now “pop” regularly and I have permanent back pain after living through that ordeal.

After the ombudsman intervention I was given priority status to move. That came with more hurdles and barriers. Paul Hadley, again said I would get this property over his dead body. Somerset Council were consistently unprofessional, in breach of their duty of care and left me at risk consistently.

The housing officer I’d shared my rape experience with got me this home but they placed their own employment at risk to do it and said she would be paying for it for the rest of her time there. Being close to retirement I don’t think she cared what they thought of her any longer, she was an exceptional exception to an otherwise toxic council mentality towards tenants.

It shouldn’t need an employee to put their job in jeopardy to do what the law already specifies is their duty and role as a public service.

When I viewed my current home it was in awful condition and wasn’t accessible. I asked what work was being done to address this prior to my moving here and was advised nothing beyond pre-scheduled works example updating the boiler (which turned out to be faulty from day one). Beyond a decorating kit which I couldn’t safely use I was told repeatedly I could “always self fund” despite this being a provision under law and they had specific disability grants available for the works I was asking for, they refused me all accessibility and refused me an occupational assessment.

Whilst I was safe from one danger by moving here, the stalker, I was thrown into a new set of dangers to my health and safety.

As a vulnerable disabled person I was subject to bullying and harassment from neighbours very early on as they felt I was too young to be living in a bungalow without ever knowing, or caring about the context of my disabilities and what I was moved from.

One case of neighbour harassment became so extreme it ended in a protection order on their visitor.

The property, as already stated was in a terrible state. I photographed it all and sent it to legal counsel. They advised me not to move in (too late by this point) because it was not fit for human habitation and not up to council relet standards.

It took seven years to get the kitchen accessible and it’s still not 100% with faults from installation causing me undue resistance on my joints and risk of injury. I continue to battle that out with the council. It took going to the ombudsman again and the then CEO of the council to even get the kitchen adjusted under equality law.

The boiler has been faulty from day one. It has always done this thing where the pressure builds up and it eventually “burbs”. It’s so bad it sounds like it’s going to blow the cupboard door off. Eventually it started failing and I repeatedly needed to get out of hours engineers from the council to patch it up.

One year it was failing daily and I kept reporting it. The engineers kept having issue scanning the gas meter to log the call. They had a new system and it was having teething issues. This meant that every engineer would not have record of the previous days call out and openly treated me as a liar. Thankfully I had all the email communication to the gas repairs department and was able to prove this was a persistent problem.

During this time I was loosing mobility and dexterity in my joints, notably my hands and fingers. This meant I couldn’t keep myself safe. I was paying extra home help just to be safe, prep more meals and washing up as I couldn’t do anything myself (the kettle had to be repeatedly boiled as I had no hot water during all this).

I was huddled up in my bedroom trying to keep warm. As has been consistent with this council there was no safeguarding and no assistance. After almost a week of this and getting more & more unwell, I filed a formal complaint. I was given a tiny little heater and eventually compensated for the additional electric I was using as well as hourly cost of extra home help.

Since then it has failed again and again. In fact I dread every winter knowing it is going to fail.

Each and every time my mobility is materially impacted, because it usually fails overnight, meaning it’s had 8 hours for the temperature to plummet then hours more before an engineer can come out to patch it up.

In that time I loose mobility and dexterity. It happened again recently (dropping to 14°C by the time I woke to discover the boiler fault) and despite using electric heaters I simply could not warm up. Electric heaters are no substitute for central heating. It left me unable to make a meal and I was unable to get emergency home help to plug the care gap.

One engineer advised me that as long as they have parts they will patch it up indefinitely until it fails permanently. This is without any risk assessment to someone like myself materially impacted by temperature.

I filed another complaint upon many complaints at this point, with the council and they are refusing me a boiler update.

They’re refusing me a risk assessment and refusing me an occupational assessment whilst being fully informed this is having a detrimental impact on my health and safety.

It got so bad that I started to have intrusive thoughts and ended up on the phone to crisis. After an hour with them they were able to stabilise me. I then sought legal advise and as will come as no surprise was informed yes the council are in breach of equalities law but also they’re discriminating me on disabilities ground by refusing a risk assessment of my needs. The council have openly stated that I am getting “special treatment” any time works are carried out even though it ALWAYS falls under equalities/reasonable adjustments.

I even wrote to Duncan Sharkey, the CEO of Somerset Council. I got a short response from a different department repeating the deadlock to upgrading the boiler, refusing me equal access to refuse & recycling collection (thats a whole other story of discrimination over almost a decade) and telling me to take it up with the ombudsman.

So here we go again, I now need to go back to the ombudsman but this time I am looking at legal options (I even took out extra home insurance knowing this would happen) as well as taking this to the national press is my next step. Enough is enough!

Ultimately this goes beyond a boiler, beyond me as one person. This is about an institutional failing towards disabled people and a toxic mentality of blaming tenants when the council don’t want to spend money to carry out their legal duty. They hide behind policy and procedure to deny you equal access and place wilful barriers to health & safety by denying risk assessments.

I once had a council surveyor blame the damp in my previous home on my cats “heavy breathing”, telling me to get rid of the cats and in his report blamed me for not using the extractor fan. There was no extractor fan. Can you guess, yes the council had refused me an extractor fan in that property, but still the council blame the tenant for their failures. As an aside the damp was so severe along the entire block that the wall was collapsing in one property and they had to be relocated for their safety.

But yeah, blame the tenant, it’s Somerset Councils continued consistency, blame the tenant and discriminate, all to save a few pennies whilst taking rent money from us all.

Rouge landlords are not consigned to the private sector!

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