"I'm supposed to pay the rent and all my bills but I am not going to be able to pay. I'm really broke, she said. With this decision about my universal credit, I'm on the brink of losing my flat. I have a dignified life with a small apartment with my little things, it's my comfort. And I'm on the brink of losing all this because if I don't pay the rent, I'll be kicked out."
"I'm so very disappointed because I was so happy in the UK. I have never asked for any help, only now because I have cancer and I need it. I have never even taken a sick day in the eight years I have worked there."
"I asked permission from my cancer team if I could come to Portugal to tell my family, because this is the kind of news you don't say by phone, she said. The plan was I come, I tell them, I go back and I continue the [chemotherapy] treatment."
Ana Paula Cabral, 65, moved to the UK from Portugal eight years ago and began receiving universal credit in July after a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis required extensive chemotherapy. Her universal credit payments were stopped in September after she fell seriously ill while visiting family in Portugal; the Department for Work and Pensions determined she had been outside the country for more than a month and was therefore ineligible. Cabral consulted Guy's hospital and was given permission to travel to tell family she had cancer, but while in Portugal she developed a serious blood infection. With no income, she cannot pay rent or bills and faces potential eviction and job loss.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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