Posted: 10/8/2007 12:18:20 AM EDT
We may have seen this before but as is the way of this Government, treatment of injured Service personnell is a bloody disgrace.  Article adapted from The Daily Mail 28/8/07 This website does not normally comment on media articles but this item webmaster felt so important it needed to be drawn attention to. According to his doctors, Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson is the most seriously wounded soldier ever to survive. He suffered 37 catastrophic injuries when his unprotected Land Rover was hit last September by a landmine in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Both his legs have been amputated, his spleen and some of his ribs torn apart from shrapnel, have been removed. His left arm is almost paralysed; he has lost three years of memory and is now slowly recovering the power of speech. Yet in spite of these appalling injuries Ben has been awarded only half the maximum allowed under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, WHY? Because under asinine rules, no soldier can be compensated for more than three separate injuries. Never mind the £152,000 compensation will never meet his needs. Can this be the same MOD that just a month ago agreed to pay an RAF typist £484,000 for a repetitive strain injury to her thumb! Many will argue there is no place for this compensation culture in our Armed Forces, where the risk of death is part of the job, indeed in earlier conflicts a soldier as badly injured as Ben would have died. Yet we have a solemn duty to these young men to offer them what help they require, who risk so much on our behalf. As long as we have a compensation scheme for the Armed Forces, the Government must surely have a clear duty to ensure that it operates fairly. Please click on the link below to confirm your signature on the petition at the bottom of this email. petitions.pm.gov.uk/WoundedSoldiers/ If you are able to support this please do so, we owe a debt to our Service personnell and this is one thing we can all do to help. Regards Martin |
