51-year old Kaushik is a retired courier who has kidney failure and is waiting for a transplant. He was told he would have to wait six months for his Personal Independence Payment, intended to defray the extra costs of impairment, but it has taken months longer. He says, “It is the uncertainty that hurts. I must have called the assessors 100 times or more, but they don’t care. I have worked hard all my life and never claimed any benefits, and this is how they treat me.” He is struggling financially, having resorted to credit cards for the first time, and one of his daughters is using part of her student loan to help tide the family over.