British Gas Price Rises: Effects On Health And Disability

Last night, I sent around a message asking people to contact me about how the British Gas price rises would affect their or their child’s disability or health condition.

I was, and still am, hoping to publish an extended guest post on this topic.

However, it soon became obvious that there will be serious disability-related consequences, particularly because of something I had not thought of. So I decided to write a post on this topic myself, and open it to your comments.

So, what had I not thought of? What had I not remembered?

British Gas provides electricity as well as gas.

Why is this relevant?

Because electricity is required to operate all kinds of disability and health related equipment, from hoists and lifts in the home to oxygen tanks and nebulisers, and portable dialysis machines.

With the exception of hoists and lifts, all the machines listed above are used for life threatening conditions. If sick and disabled people require access to them at home, but will now need to spend more to run them at home, they will be stuck in a very tight spot.

They may even be forced to choose between using the electricity, to keep the disabled person alive, or eating and drinking, to keep the disabled person and their carers alive.

What a choice.

One person on Facebook put it simply: more people will end up in hospital. This is very true- if they decide that they cannot afford to run portable oxygen tanks, portable nebulisers and portable dialysis machines in their own homes, they may decide to take up the use of these machines in hospitals.

This would add to the pressure on the NHS’ already limited resources. It would take spots away from people who might be more in need of the hospital machines than someone who could have coped with the portable machines for the old cost of the electricity bill.

It will reduce quality of life for those who could have coped with the portable machines, as it will mean regular hospital appointments in the case of dialysis in particular. In the case of oxygen tanks, it might even mean that a person would have to stay in hospital or a care home permanently.

That might sound extreme, but it just highlights the difficulty of the choice between a portable oxygen tank and food.

Will desperate parent carers, unable to afford the electricity to run an oxygen tank at home, be forced to put their children into care? Not because of a lack of love for the child, but because of a simple lack of money?

I do hope not- but what a choice.

In the case of hoists, the consequences may seem less extreme. The lack of electricity to run a portable hoist in a home would mean that if a permanent wheelchair user wanted to move from bed to wheelchair or sofa, they would have to be lifted by carers, putting carers’ physical health in unnecessary danger.

If there is no one around to lift such a person, they would have to be left lying still in a safe place for long periods of time, until they could be lifted. This would have consequences for their quality of life.

The need to switch a lift off in the home would mean that without the ability to be manually lifted by a carer, a permanent wheelchair user would spend very long periods of time in one part of their home.

British Gas, and other providers who are considering price hikes, need to seriously consider these points and seriously consider making people who can provide proof of requiring these machines in their home exempt from the price hike.

What I would like to know, readers, is: Is there a campaign, petition or similar to make such people exempt? If not yet, I would be very interested in starting one. Would anyone like to help?

Finally, if I’ve left anything out, this thread is open for your comments about how the British Gas price rises will affect you or your family.