Cut the Power and I will die, so he cut the power
If you are the company electrician arriving to a house that is behind on their payments and you see a woman on an electric oxygen pump that needs to power to stay alive, do you go ahead and cut the power, or defer to a supervisor or some person in charge to consider the situation.
Obviously, common sense would dictate that you would call the company office and have the supervisor make the call.
Instead, this Mercury Energy electrician chose to cut the power, even after the family showed him that the mother needed the electric oxygen pump to stay alive.
For a bill that was $122 in arrears.
Mercury Energy's general manager James Moulder stated that "we were simply unaware that loss of electricity to the household was putting a vulnerable customer at risk."
Wait a minute here...didn't the technician that arrived on-site saw the electric oxygen pump? And after he cut the power, the woman had difficulty breathing, became faint, and then collapsed. She was pronounced dead within two hours.
Comments
Posted by: Younger Brother
Posted on: May 31, 2007 08:00 PM
Hi James
This story hasn't all played out yet, with a lot of facts as yet unknown and questions not yet answered:
The power company disputes the families version of events, saying they were not told of the health situation at all at the time of disconnection.
The cause of death has not yet been confirmed. While unlikely, it may be unrelated.
The oxygen machine was not intended to be a life-support device, just a breathing aid for no more than 16 hours a day. There is a public health issue here of why this woman was left at home if her illness was so severe as to be life-threatening within such a short time-frame.
Similarly, if the machine was that critical to life support, why did it not have a battery backup in case of power cut from natural causes such as weather. Another public health issue.
Bill payment - heavy-handed in the extreme, yet the power company claims the family was given multiple notices of failure to pay bills and impending disconnection as per usual process. In fact the extended family paid the bill the next day, begging the question, if the electricity was so life-critical, why did the extended family not help out earlier.
Once the power was cut and it became clear that the womans health was deteriorating, why did the family not do one or all of; call an ambulance, run an extension cord to the neighbours, go to doctors or hospital, or any other similar mitigating action in the event of sudden, severe illness or accident in family. None of these actions were taken. In the families own words, they took turns to hold her hand and sing her songs until she died.
So, still a lot of this issue to come. It is certainly leading to a lot of discussion in NZ about individual v corporate responsibility, as well as highly emotive anger etc aimed at the company concerned (being labelled 'murderers' etc).
Cheers