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HE’​s one of the world’​s longest surviving kidney dialysis patients and has had 33 years of renal treatment, four failed transplants and 14 heart attacks.
But now, in a shameful indictment of Tory welfare cuts, Paul Mickleburgh, 53, has been deemed fit to work.

The dad of three, who was diagnosed with renal failure when he was 19, was forced to give up his job as a technician 20 years ago after his body rejected a fourth donor kidney.

He is now so ill doctors have taken him off the transplant list as he would not survive a fifth operation and will spend the rest of his life on dialysis.
The machine, which cleans his blood, is now the only thing keeping him alive.

But after more than three decades hooked up to it for five hours, three days a week, other organs, including his heart, are also failing.

The Government insists that under their new employment and support allowance scheme, which replaces incapacity benefit, “​those found to be too sick or disabled to work won’​t be expected to”​.

But Paul, from Aberdeen, who has also battled cancer, pneumonia, 14 heart attacks in the last five years and suffers from spontaneous internal bleeding and brittle bones, has been placed in a “​work-related activity group”​.

This requires him to attend “​work-focused interviews”​ and actively look for employment or his incapacity benefits will be cut.

Incredibly, the Department for Work and Pensions reached their decision without Paul even being interviewed or given a medical.

Paul said: “​How ill do I need to be? Apart from being dead, I don’​t know how I can get much worse. It makes me so angry.

“​I was asked to tell them all my illnesses and when I had finished it was a page and a half.

“​I enclosed all my medical history, medication, dialysis times and what it does to me after being on it for 33 years.

“​But to my shock I have been passed fit for work and must attend work focus interviews and do everything possible to find work or lose my benefits.

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