Benefits assessment

JON: The benefits department of the Dutch government will soon rate my level of disability, which in turn will determine my income for the next decade, so it’s a big deal. Normally you get assessed after two years off sick from work, but hopeless cases can apply earlier. And wouldn’t you know, my employer suggested that I apply early…

Plan A is to be rated 100% disabled and thus get the maximum benefit amount possible. The Dutch have an interesting system: if you are completely unable to hold down a normal job (what they charmingly call 70-100% unsuitable for work), you get a full pension and the system is very nice to you. However, if you are less that 30% useless, the state basically washes its hands of you and you’re entirely on your own financially. The middle ground is taken up by people who get a bit of benefit but not enough to live on.

The evaluation has been hanging over us like a rather dark cloud, so given the pretty hope-free prognoses from the many medics we have seen, it seemed sensible to start the ball rolling. That way, we will soon know what income we can expect, and whether I need to start a new career as a rent boy in Amsterdam (I wish I knew where that goat got to…)

I sent in the paperwork for my application some time ago, but nothing happened, not even a ‘thank you for your letter, we may get around to reading it some day’-letter. So we rang again, and again, and eventually we got an appointment. The delay was apparently caused by a shortage of doctors able to evaluate academics – which strikes me as odd since doctors are themselves academics so should all know what that involves.

Anyway, a few days ago we saw a rather nice doctor who (surprising for the Dutch) claimed to speak poor English. But she could understand it just fine, and as that exactly mirrors Marie’s abilities in Dutch (i.e. she understands, but doesn’t speak), we could set up a short chain of Chinese whispers: Doctor spoke to Marie in Dutch, Marie translated for me into English, and I replied in English. Well, in fact I got left out much of the time since Marie knows my medical history (and can remember it better than I can).

Since we’d had loads of time while waiting for the appointment to be made, we were compulsively well prepared for this interview. We had filled in forms supplied by the UK Parkinson’s association and in books, and had made up our own spreadsheets to list my motor and non-motor symptoms, medication use, appointments etc. The only thing missing was the brass band.

Using the forms is a kind if ‘symptoms bingo’ where I score quite high as there are few symptoms I don’t have to some degree (right down to the Parkinsonian earwax – and I have the photos to prove it). Not surprisingly, the doctor seemed to regard me as 100% disabled and said she would report that to the last evaluator, an untranslatable kind of labour market advisor. This leaves just one final hurdle where I have to talk to [untranslatable] who decides what work, if any, I am suited to doing.

Normally I would be invited to their office for this interview, but the doctor thought the result was more or less a foregone conclusion so that there was little point in me schlepping all the way to their office. Instead, she would recommend that [untranslatable] assesses my level of disability / inability over the phone. I expect the conversation will go something like this:

Me: Hello.
[untranslatable]: Hello, I am [untranslatable]. Do you think you are able to work at all?
Me: No.
[untranslatable]: OK, fair enough, that’s also what the doctor thought. Bye-bye.

Well, we shall soon know. It will be a major relief if we can finally put this hurdle behind us.