Deputy takes up young widow’s case

Monday 22nd August 2011, 2:29PM BST.

Deputy John Gollop A deputy is trying to help a widow who lost her home after the husband she gave up work to care for died.

John Gollop (pictured) has said he will try to find out whether Carol Gallienne can get any more support from Social Services.

‘As a deputy for the Town, where she used to live prior to losing her home, and hopefully as a caring person, I think the system has harshly treated her,’ Deputy Gollop said.

Mrs Gallienne, 41, was left without a widow’s pension when her husband, 61-year-old Michael, died.

She is not entitled to the year’s bereavement allowance which other widows and widowers receive as she has not reached 45 – the threshold for the benefit.

Deputy Gollop added that he planned to contact the Social Security Department and urge them retrospectively to pay the carers’ allowance to which she was entitled for looking after her husband in the weeks before he died. He also planned to urge the department to make a ‘one-off discretionary payment’.

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View more: Pension news, Pensions news, Widows news.

1
Observant

August 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm

Fair play to Deputy Gollop. Others should take a leaf out of his book. This whole fiasco stinks of age discrimination. I am certain it would not hold up in a court of law.

Losing her partner entitles her to the widow’s allowance, regardless of age. She has endured a loss and qualifies on that merit alone. Fact is fact. The discrimination lays at the feet of whomever put the framework together and the determining officer tasked with making savings and cutbacks in all the wrong areas.

To lose her residence at such a difficult time is yet another kick in the teeth she could well have done without.

Basic care and compassion has been cruelly overlooked in this case. I wonder how many heroin addicts are being supported whilst this woman is in genuine need?

By the sound of it, I don’t think she has even been offered bereavement counselling?

At a sad and difficult time the system has worked against her to do its best to make her life even more unbearable.

It would appear as though help is offered only at the point of no return. Prevention is better than cure but not with how things stand at the moment.

If she would have had a mental breakdown she would be assured a place at the Castel Hospital. The cost of which would be numerous thousands of pounds per month.

If she went further, the system would paper over the facts and offer their heartfelt worthless sympathies to family and friends.

In the meantime Mrs/Ms Watson is out on the town keeping a sharp eagle eye out for a young, virile, dark haired male to father child number 15. Happy in the knowledge it will guarantee her another 7 years from contributing towards the pot she has had her hand in since leaving school.

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2
pbfalla

August 23, 2011 at 2:55 am

Care and compassion should never be in the same sentence as guernsey

Corruption,tax evasion and greed then we are talking.

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