Help! Uni punishing me for being genuinely ill

bestpud

koppite79 wrote: »

I was not laid up for long on that occasion and didn't miss any assessments after christmas, it was just that the advice shop sent me a horrible letter after this occasion because they screwed up. I only really mention it as to me it highlights how crap they have been, and yet they say that I should have sought help from them (I did, they just didn't give any decent help and now blame me for not doing what they failed to tell me to do. I feel like I'm going crazy!)
Anyway, it recurred just before the easter break and didn't fully ease up for months. Usually when this happens it resolves itself within weeks, so as I had quite some time before the end of term I soldiered on and hoped it would get better enough to enable me to finish everything. Unfortunately this didn't happen, and I'm being punished for trying rather than just give up.

Ah right! I must admit I was starting to think things weren't adding up here.

How do you get on with your personal tutor? Will he/she help at all?

Or have you asked the SU if they can help?

I still can't understand why they refused your claim and I think it would be very helpful for you to find this out. Do they have a person in registry services who deals with all the claims (usually the person you get the form from and such)? If so, it may be worth asking them - they are very helpful at my uni and hold all the information on claims so should know what has happened.

I'm also thinking you haven't actually given them much information - or at least not the full picture, 'loud and clear'.

Did you include evidence from your tutors with your claim and/or appeal. And did you spell out how you were affected and specifically state how it made you unable to work on assessments? You do have to be very clear - as they cannot read between the lines, as it says on our instructions. They literally have to look at what you submit and try to tick the required boxes in a mechanical fashion.

Tbh the advice shop you speak of seems a waste of time. Maybe you need to start firing off some letters to people higher up?

welf_man

Definitely contact the Students' Union - the elected officers may not be up to much, but it's rare for there not to be a professional adviser (like me!) doing the actual advice work.

If you let me know which University it is, I may be able to get you a contact who can help.

Mel.

koppite79

bestpud wrote: »

Ah right! I must admit I was starting to think things weren't adding up here.

How do you get on with your personal tutor? Will he/she help at all?

Or have you asked the SU if they can help?

I still can't understand why they refused your claim and I think it would be very helpful for you to find this out. Do they have a person in registry services who deals with all the claims (usually the person you get the form from and such)? If so, it may be worth asking them - they are very helpful at my uni and hold all the information on claims so should know what has happened.

I'm also thinking you haven't actually given them much information - or at least not the full picture, 'loud and clear'.

Did you include evidence from your tutors with your claim and/or appeal. And did you spell out how you were affected and specifically state how it made you unable to work on assessments? You do have to be very clear - as they cannot read between the lines, as it says on our instructions. They literally have to look at what you submit and try to tick the required boxes in a mechanical fashion.

Tbh the advice shop you speak of seems a waste of time. Maybe you need to start firing off some letters to people higher up?

They refused the original claim on the grounds that it was a pre-existing condition and as such could not be covered by mit circs. This was an assumption on their part because I said that I had suffered from this condition previously but that it had cleared up on these occasions. They also said that I never went to the advice shop regarding this.

In fairness the medical letter supporting my claim was not particularly detailed, but neither the advice shop nor the online regs states that the supporting medical evidence has to be incredibly detailed, so I assumed if a senior cosultant says he supports what I say then they would accept that.
They refused to re-evaluate this assumption when I appealed even though I provided a detailed letter from my consultant catagorically stating tha the condtion was accute and unpredicatable (the very words the universities regulations state as applying to mit circs) and therefore had no reason to reverse the original decision.

They also mentioned in the letter telling me my appeal had failed that I had seen the advice shop etc many times, but hadn't followed their advice. This is shocking, as not only do they fail to acknowledge that they had completely reversed what they said in admitting I had seen the advice shop, but are now saying that the advice shop tried to help me but I had not heeded this!
As the fact that I never went to the advice shop was originally given as one of reasons for not granting mit circs, I can't believe how cynically they change their story without even acknowledging they were wrong in the first place!
I feel like Im on shifting sands, every time I pin them down they change their story and tack to circumvent it.

As far as giving them information, I have given them exhaustive information on the whole thing, still to no avail.

And I initially went to see the su education officer but he was another post grad filling out his cv and was worse than useless in that he delayed things by saying he as gonna do things and then still not doing them 3 weeks later. Worse still, in an email he sent me which included some conversations he had had about me with the advice shop I found that he had said been using language which I found sounded very unsupportive of me, such as putting "(if he did)" when discussing whether I had really had some meetings with them they had no record of. I feel as my representative, he should automatically believe what I say, at least in representations to the advice shop itself, as acting like he may not believe me either totaly undermines me (the fact that they now admit all these meetings did take place pretty much vindicates me on this).

Is there a central su rep I can see, or could I even use an ed. oficer at a different uni? I know some are really really good, it's just the one at mine is useless.

any2002uk

I feel you should not study at university if you are not well! You can get gap year so for that you get 1 year off from university.

MrsManda

Sorry if this is just stating the obvious but have you spoken to your university's disability centre? This is the department which is there to support all students who are ill. You are advised to register them when you start university but if you don't you can still contact them at any time for help. They'll know what you can claim for, how to claim and also know all the quirks of your particular university's system.
Generally speaking, if you require special consideration you should inform your university as soon as the situation arises, not leave it until you've already missed assessments etc...
I've been ill throughout my education and the nature of my condition is that I can go from best to worse in a matter of hours. I always make sure my personal tutor or another advocate (such as my degree administrator or the disability centre) know I'm ill and make sure they pass on the information. I've always found that keeping people in the loop means they're much more willing to be lenient. This however does not mean I've been handed a First or even a 2:1 - mitigating circumstances at university only means they may given you a couple of percent extra if you're hovering near a grade boundary. No matter how ill you were they won't give you a higher grade if you're a lot lower than the boundary, though they may allow you to retake the year.

Speak to your university's disability co-ordinator and see what they have to say.

melancholly

koppite79 wrote: »

They refused the original claim on the grounds that it was a pre-existing condition and as such could not be covered by mit circs. This was an assumption on their part because I said that I had suffered from this condition previously but that it had cleared up on these occasions. They also said that I never went to the advice shop regarding this.

i think here i can see their problem - from their point of view, you had a condition which you told them you had cleared up and wasn't a problem and wouldn't interfere. then you have it again and then it's a problem. so they can see that it's either something that hadn't cleared up or that it's something that you suffer from chronically. if it's chronic, then they would have had to set up mechanisms to help you throughout your course, but half way through your final year would have been very late in the day to ask for it.

i don't think they're right, but i can see how this could look to them - remember that a lot of people really try and have it on with mitigating circumstances.... 'i broke a nail on the morning of my exam and couldn't write' cannot be considered favourably against 'we had a car crash on the way to the exam'. obviously that's a trivial example, but the university has an obligation to ensure that only people who genuinely deserve mitigating circumstances to be approved, or it undermines all the other students.

to get this point across, can you request a face to face official meeting about this? then you can get tell them what they need to know and fill out any necessary details? you can take someone with you to have as an independent witness.

Is there a central su rep I can see, or could I even use an ed. oficer at a different uni? I know some are really really good, it's just the one at mine is useless.

doubtful - each uni will have its own special procedures on this and someone from another uni will not know what hoops you should have jumped through.


one final point that hasn't been mentioned, is that courses change from year to year - lecturers change, emphasis on topics change and if appropriate, more recent research is included. the balance of how much each module counts for can also be altered. it's also not fair for anyone to resit an exam/piece of coursework that other people have already completed as they could easily get extra unfair help. this can mean that re-sitting an entire year is the only option, even when only a few modules have been missed.

i guess i think you're onto a loser if they have said no twice already..... i don't really know if that's fair to you or not, but if this all happened in nov 2007 to jan 2008, you are currently trying to change a decision in the following academic year.... maybe last easter this would have been possible but i can't see it happening now...... the fact that this is so late may well be the crux of why they are refusing things.

koppite79

any2002uk wrote: »

I feel you should not study at university if you are not well! You can get gap year so for that you get 1 year off from university.

I wasn't ill when I started. And even if I was then people with back conditions are entitled to education too. My back will never ever be 100%, so should I just never finish my degree?

melancholly wrote: »

i think here i can see their problem - from their point of view, you had a condition which you told them you had cleared up and wasn't a problem and wouldn't interfere. then you have it again and then it's a problem. so they can see that it's either something that hadn't cleared up or that it's something that you suffer from chronically. if it's chronic, then they would have had to set up mechanisms to help you throughout your course, but half way through your final year would have been very late in the day to ask for it.

From my point of view, when I started the condition had cleared up and my consultant didn't think it would be a problem again, and as he is the expert that's what I went with. Even when it did recurr, he advised that it was probably just a blip, that it would clear up, and if I did get any further bouts they would be less and less often or severe. Unfortunately this was not the case and it did get worse, because as it turns out the accute problem that had been corrected had recurred. But it is still not a chronic problem, as it got progressively better since then and I haven't had a bout since April.
To me saying that it was a pre-existing condition and so is basically my own problem is like telling someone who is overweight that the heart attack they suffer is caused by a pre existing condition and so they can't be allowed any special treatment. Or someone who has previously suffered cancer but had treatment and been 'cured' (for want of a better word) that they too cannot expect any mitigation to be considered when it reccurs at the end of their degree, because after all they have had it before and is therefore a preexisting condition.

In reality the chances of this occurring are non-existant, but to me the principle of the matter is the same.

I did not begin the course with a permenent problem, such as partial sight, or paraplegia, and wonder at the end why I could not have complete things I should have known would be impossible.
I started the course without any impairment but suffered an illness which made certain aspects impossible at the time, until I recovered. I had done so by the time of the summer resits, and only asked that I be able to complete the assesments I had missed at this point as if for the 1st time (it is the same as someone who fails an exam or assessment and resits, except that the mit circs would allow my marks to count towards my degree, as it would acknowledge that I had not failed but merely been prevented from sitting them first time round). This is what the mitigating circumstances allows for within the universities own guidelines, and I feel would be a fair outcome.

And I realise that some people do try to play the system, but I don't imagine they have detailed evidence from an orthapeadic consultant, do they?
What more can I do to prove I'm genuine?

melancholly

right now, i'd focus on getting a good mark by re-sitting the year. if you want to persue it, then clearly something new needs to be done and if you haven't had an official face-to-face meeting yet, then you should do that asap. that way you can get an answer to what you need to provide them with, or what you needed to have done as in all likelihood it is too late to change their decision now. if that will give you piece of mind then do it, but don't let this get in the way of actually completing the coursework this year!

i'm not sure what continuing with the claim will do to help as if someone has a problem and can't finish the year, it's often in their best interests to re-do the whole year to enable them to get the best grade they can....

markk_2

That's just unfair, you guys have been treated so wrongly, if this had happened to me, I would have kicked up a right old fuss. I think you have a strong case.

koppite79

Just to update, I spoke to someone at the uni and put all my issues to him, and to my surprise he didn't have any answers and seemed quite sympathetic. The upshot is he asked me to put it in an email and he would look into it again ahead of a meeting next week, so fingers crossed maybe they'll realise they're being unfair.