Why do things always go wrong at the weekend
I arrived at mum and dad's on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago to discover my parents are effectively trapped inside their property with no means of leaving it for any upcoming appointments or in the event of an emergency
The local council had put scaffolding up in the alleyway without any prior notice or consultation with myself about the access or egress required and have totally blocked mum and dads only wheelchair accessible route into and out of their property since mum had her stroke and dad became immobile after breaking his hip
The support poles for the scaffolding were so close together that I had to walk sideways just to get up the alleyway and mums walking frame is too wide to fit between the supports, I didn't even bother trying dads wheelchair as it's such a tight fit on a normal day, then to top everything off
I couldn't even get my parents wheelie bin down the alley so that wouldn't be able to get emptied on the Monday, which was ridiculous!
Thankfully a neighbour kindly collected the bags of rubbish and put them into their own wheelie bin for disposal
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| Image Description - A photo showing how narrow the scaffolding made the alleyway with a water bottle on its side for scale |
My dad at the time was unwell with aspirational pneumonia and there was no way an ambulance crew could get him out of the house should he take a turn for the worse and need to get to the hospital!
It was an accident just waiting to happen!
I posted a rant about it on our local facebook group and whatsApp group as I couldn't get hold of anyone from the council with being the weekend
After seeing my post two local councilors contacted me and we arranged to meet at my parents house so they could assess the situation, both agreed with me that it was a massive Health & Safety risk especially with dad being so unwell
Obviously nothing could be done about moving the scaffolding over the weekend, so a temporary evacuation plan was worked out between us that would involve the fire brigade and taking fencing down in several of the neighbours gardens to get dad out down somebody else's driveway should he take a turn for the worse and require going to hospital
This wasn't an ideal evacuation plan by any stretch of the imagination, but it was all we could come up with on a Saturday evening, as no notice had been given about the scaffolding going up alternative plans for my parents possibly going into respite care for the duration of the works couldn't be arranged
Thankfully dads health remained stable over the weekend and the emergency evacuation plan wasn't required as I'm not sure how the neighbours would have felt about it
Thanks to the prompt intervention of our local town councilors, the work requiring the scaffolding was done first thing Monday morning and the scaffolding was taken back down on Monday afternoon, which meant I was able to get dad out of the house to his Doctors appointment on the Tuesday
But things could have been very different with some communication from the council!
I wouldn't have needed to take to social media to to get some help, or have to deal with all the nasty trolls who have nothing better to do with their time than to kick someone who's already down and struggling
I have so much more to tell you, January has been an absolutely manic month, especially the first two weeks
Until next time
Dawn, Boris & Eko xxx
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We thank goodness for elected officials who actually showed up on the weekend and assisted with a resolution!
ReplyDeleteThey were fantastic at getting things moving, it was a worrying time for sure xxx
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