An Aberdeenshire man who has been on dialysis for more than a decade has been told he must quit his job – or risk losing his benefits.
Steven Fraser suffers from Glomerulonephritis – or chronic renal failure – and has been on 15 hours of dialysis a week for the last 11 years. He has been waiting for a kidney transplant for more than four years.
He has struggled to hold down a job, and has been unable to move on from his childhood home in Kemnay.
However, last year the 32-year-old secured an “ideal” part-time job with local company Premier Coaches driving youngsters to school, which fits in perfectly around his treatment at Inverurie Hospital’s Gordon renal dialysis unit.
He has been working between 12 and 16 hours a week around his treatment, with his income boosted by employment support allowance (ESA) from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
But now the benefit has been stopped, and Mr Fraser has been told he must quit his job if he wants to continue receiving it.
He said: “The lady I spoke to at the DWP said you can’t get that benefit any more, you are going to have to quit your job or live on a benefit.
“I am an upbeat and positive person normally, it takes a lot to get me down but dealing with the DWP has done it.
“The reason I claim is because I have no other option.
“I am not looking for them to give me a house, I just want to sustain some sort of normal life.”
Mr Fraser received a new kidney in October 2009, allowing him to enjoy a “normal” 18 months working as a delivery driver at UK Mail, until his condition returned in 2011 when the kidney failed.
Since then he struggled to find work that was suitable around his treatment, until he landed the job at Premier Coaches last July.
He added: “If it wasn’t for me getting the job I would have been in a much worse place. It is just a brilliant job.
“I really would like to live on my own, I’d like to start a family and I just can’t do that because I am on kidney dialysis.
“If I didn’t come for my dialysis 15 hours a week I’d be out there working, but it is not like I am asking for the government to pay for me to live, it is just what I am entitled to.”
Mr Fraser claimed his ESA payments were cancelled without notice, and although he has been told to reapply for Personal Independent Payment (PIP), he is not certain he will receive it – having been refused it three times previously.
A DWP spokeswoman said ESA benefits were only available for a year for those working 16 hours a week or less, or earning £104.
She said that as Mr Fraser has gone beyond this timescale, he could only get the benefit whilst working on a “supported permitted work scheme” under the supervision of a local authority or support group.
She added: “Permitted work helps people to stay close to the labour market and means they can work for a few hours a week for up to a year – or for an unlimited time, in certain circumstances, while still claiming benefits.
“We’ve been in regular contact with Mr Fraser to discuss his permitted work and to explain the support available for him to continue this.”
Hospitalised for three months
When Steven Fraser began complaining of a sore arm and leg, he had no idea that a week later he would on dialysis.
His mother, a nurse, realised something was wrong with her son and the local GP quickly recognised he was suffering from kidney failure.
He was in hospital for three months, and his weight plummeted from 17 to eight stone.
The former Kemnay Academy pupil, who has had immune complex disorder since he was 12, said: “Everyday for the first few weeks I was in hospital I was sleeping about 20 hours a day.
“I was so ill, I was anaemic. My mum told me she’d come in and they’d go home without speaking to me.
“They said to me I was near death’s door, but you don’t really notice. It just took it out me.”
At the time of his diagnosis, he was working for Breedon Aggregates but was forced to quit so he could manage his treatment.
He went to work for UK Mail as a delivery man, and eventually got a transplant in October 2009.
He said: “I got a phone call that I had a kidney at midnight and I was getting it by 9am in the morning.
“I went back to work with the UK Mail and did that. It was like a long Christmas. You forget just how carefree life is.
“But the kidney only lasted a year and a half. My immune system is too strong and attacked my kidney.”
When the job at Premier Coaches came up, Mr Fraser hoped he was going to be able to manage to have some sense of normality to his life, boosted by the ESA benefit.
But with the rules that the benefit can only be claimed for 52 weeks, the 32-year-old is now left with £150 a week.
Mr Fraser said: “Once you do these 52 weeks on ESA you either leave it or take on more hours, I have tried to explain to them I can’t take more hours on because of my dialysis and my condition doesn’t get any better.
“We are in a loophole, in a gap in the system.”