TORMENT OF MOST VULNERABLE
HOME patients like Kimberlee Cole face a grim choice between heating, eating and surviving as the energy costs for running their life-saving equipment are set to soar in October.
And they suffer a double worry because NHS payments for using vital blood-cleaning dialysis machines, oxygen cylinders or – like Kimberlee – a lung-clearing nebuliser are patchy.
The former family support worker has an electric bill of £180 a month and gets no help for the extra she must pay for the nebuliser she uses three times a day to clear her lungs of mucus.
Kimberlee, 66, of Eastbourne, East Sussex, said: “We’ve already stopped putting lights on but if the bills keep going up I’ll have to cut out one of the sessions. That means I won’t be able to function as well as I do now.”
Sarah Woolnough of Asthma + Lung UK said: “People with lung conditions are having to make a stark choice between heating, eating or using life-saving devices. Without help, thousands are at risk of being priced out of breathing.”
Support
Dawn White of Canvey Island, Essex, needs 20 hours of dialysis a week to stay alive while waiting for a kidney donor.
Her renal nurse estimates the cost of the electricity and water her machine needs to operate is £200 a month.
But four years after starting home haemodialysis treatment with husband Paul as her full-time carer, she is yet to see a penny from Southend hospital.
The grandmother, 59, said: “We’re still waiting for funding. It’s hard to cover the electricity dialysis cost. We’re saving the NHS a fortune by dialysing