Gran left waiting for 5 hours after taxi firm blunder
WHEELCHAIR-BOUND 92-YEAR-OLD LEFT EXHAUSTED AND TRAUMATISED AFTER HAVING TO BE PUSHED HOME IN DARK
A 92-year-old great-grandmother had to be pushed home in her wheelchair for over a mile in the dark after waiting FIVE hours for a taxi which failed to turn up.
Frail Marjorie Bond was left cold, exhausted and traumatised by the blunder, which turned a simple journey from her daughter’s house in Didsbury to a care home in Withington into a painful ordeal.
Because Marjorie cannot leave her wheelchair without the care home harness, she was unable to use the bathroom, and endured the indignity of wetting herself while waiting.
Her family have now slammed Mantax, which repeatedly told them their wheelchair taxi was ‘on the way’ even though there were none available.
Marjorie said: “I can’t stay long at my daughter’s house because I need a hoist to use the bathroom. When that time had past, I started to panic. I was in pain and crying.
“I use this firm all the time and I never thought they would do this to me.”
The grandmother, who has previously suffered a heart attack, is confined to a wheelchair after suffering a broken thigh.
She regularly visits her daughter’s home on Fosbrook Lane in Didsbury, travelling to and from the care home in Withington, where she lives, with the taxi firm.
But, as she prepared to return at 6pm, the taxi failed to arrive.
Her family made repeated calls to the firm’s operator and were told each time the taxi was on its way. After waiting five hours, they gave up. With help from her son, Graham, Lynne resorted to pushing Marjorie the 1.5 miles home. It took nearly an hour, meaning she did not make it back until close to midnight.
Her grandaughter, Debbie Esdaille, 32, from Didsbury, told the M.E.N: “By the time she got home she was freezing and traumatised.
“We couldn’t call a regular taxi because she needs wheelchair access.
“My gran worked all her life managing her own business. She retired at 70, she deserves to be treated with dignity.
“Why did Mantax keep telling us they were on their way when they clearly weren’t?”
When the family complained to Mantax they were offered an apology and a £20 voucher to use the service which they have refused. Richard Dunn, general manager at Old Trafford-based Mantax, said they had given Marjorie a good service for many years.
“This was one absolutely isolated and unfortunate incident, very, very rare, and the family are madly unhappy and I can fully appreci- ate why,” he said. “We’ve apologised to her unreservedly, offered free travel and she’s thrown that back in our faces.
“We are a decent company and this woman has had a good service over the years, this was one terrible incident.”