JSA and hospital stay/disability?

mistress_gi

Hi everyone!
So I am receiving JSA and I had to come into hospital last monday (I'm still in hospital now and I0m not sure when I will be released).
I called social welfare and they have suspended my JSA for the time being and I was advised to speak to the social welfare officer in the hospital which I asked to do on tuesday.
I haven't heard from the social welfare officer t all and I have asked to speak to him/her multiple times now but no sign of him/her so far.
Now my question is now I have 0 income I am not sure how I will pay my bills, I can't be looking for a job for at least a few months and I am not sure when I will be able to start looking for work again.
So I am wondering if I can apply for disability allowance since my condition will required life long treatment and monitoring until I am well enough to find a job or what are my options.
Any advice welcome!
Thank you.

mrsbyrne

Sorry your not well. Will you be having any visitors at all over the weekend? If your not then you should ask to see your Public Health Nurse, they are usually up to speed. Essentially you need an Illness Benefit cert submitted to SW and then an application for SWA made to the CWO. Good luck

mistress_gi

I did have visitors, but I will try and find him or her tomorrow and have a chat to see what we can do.
Thank you for the advice.

WildRosie

If you're still in hospital, ask the nurses to contact the medical social worker for you. They will be able to advise you as to what you need to do.

mistress_gi

Yes, I tried that but the social worker never came, I think I'll be discharged tomorrow!

eastbono

Hi mistress... you need to get an MC1 form completed by the doc in the hospital and an mc2 form every week you are in there. These forms should be sent to illness benefit section in Aras Mhic Dhiarmada in Store St in Dublin. As you are on jsa its unlikely that you will qualify for illness benefit but you need to keep sending in these sick certs if you dont have an entitlement to illness benefit you will get a letter stating this and you apply to your cwo for a payment until you are fit for work again and able to go on jsa. In the mean time you need to insist on seeing some one in the hospital to push this along.

WildRosie

If you are discharged tomorrow without seeing the social worker, you should ring your GP and request an illness benefit cert. Make sure it covers the entire period you have been ill. One cert covers a max of one week so you may need more than one. Collect the cert from your GP, complete your name, address, ppsn etc (the first cert is an initial cert and requires a bit more info, the certs that come after are called interim certs and are shorter) and either post it to the social welfare office (po box number is on the cert) or hand deliver it to your local social welfare office. It takes a couple of weeks for it to come through. You can see your cwo in the meantime for supplementary welfare allowance. Hope you are feeling better.

mistress_gi

Where do I find this CWO? Sorry but I am new to all of this!

WildRosie

See here: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/supplementary_welfare_schemes/community_welfare_officers.html