Pooling our resources – achieving more together!

Marion Wilkens and Nicole Scherhag, as appeared in Alpha1 Journal 2/2023.

Dear Alpha-1 patients, dear relatives,

Living with a chronic illness can mean facing challenges on many fronts, including in disability law. The principles of disability assessment stipulate that, in the case of lung disease, the degree of disability is based on the impairment of lung function. This is not fair to everyone, and often we suffer from multiple illnesses whose varying effects are not adequately assessed. Furthermore, the psychological burdens also need to be taken into account.

The idea of pooling our experience, resources and knowledge was born during our webinar series on social law.

We need you for this!

Please send us your successful applications, appeals, and legal letters concerning severe disability. Your submissions will be reviewed exclusively by myself, Marion Wilkens, and social law expert Nicole Scherhag. Ms. Scherhag is bound by confidentiality. You can redact all personal details beforehand. Alternatively, you are welcome to send us the documents unredacted. We will then extract the relevant arguments and rewrite them in such a way that they can no longer be traced back to you.

Overall, we aim to develop suitable wording for people with Alpha-1 disorder and make it available to others affected. This will be done exclusively within the context of consultations in a self-help setting. Naturally, the templates will be individually tailored to each person.