Chesterfield grandma hospitalised after council fails to fix heating for 9 months

As previously reported, Shirley Ashton, 83, was left with only an electric heater in her council-owned home on Fern Avenue, Staveley, when her coal-fired heating system broke down in January.

After repeated enquiries from Shirley’s family, in April a council spokesperson described the repair work as “more complex than originally thought” but five months later it remains unsolved and may now have taken its toll on Shirley’s health.

Granddaughter Catherine Richardson said: “Shirley’s got COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] so she struggles with her breathing anyway but it’s never been infections or pneumonia.

“It’s been getting steadily worse and three weeks ago a doctor diagnosed her with a chest infection. She’d not been 100 per cent since, then yesterday it got to the point where she couldn’t breathe and we had to call an ambulance.”

The family say Shirley was admitted to Chesterfield Royal Hospital with pneumonia on Wednesday, September 20, and would remain there on a nebuliser and intravenous antibiotics until her condition improves.

Catherine said: “I went to visit her and she able to talk a bit more, but when she tries moving around or going to sleep she struggles to breathe.”

While medics have not explicitly attributed Shirley’s illness to her living situation, her family are convinced that being without warmth for so long must have played some part.

Catherine said: “She’s not had any hot water apart from the electric shower. If she needed to wash her hands or anything else, she has to boil the kettle. The council came out to speak to her in the spring but haven’t been back since.

“We’ve been contacting them on and off since January but there’s been no movement on the repairs. Every we speak to them they say something different. It’s been so stressful and we don’t know what to do because the council aren’t listening.

“My dad called them again after she’d been taken to hospital and they said they thought she’d be alright with the warmer weather. It has been a bit better but it was still cold in the house and winter is coming so it will be getting colder again.”

The running costs of any potential solutions which the council has offered so far have proved a particular stumbling block.

Catherine said: “They’ve mentioned putting electric radiators throughout the house but even with the heater she’s got, my grandma can’t afford to run it all the time. I don’t know how she’d pay for one in every room.

“They’ve asked if she wanted gas heating but they’d have to rip out the entire system that’s there. The best thing would be to repair or replace the fire she’s got. She’s been there 50 years and that’s all she knows.”

Councillor Jean Innes, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “We are very sorry to hear that Mrs Ashton is unwell. We’re working hard to fix the issue at Mrs Ashton’s home and our priority is to install a new, energy efficient heating system as soon as possible. As soon as we have confirmation of Mrs Ashton’s preferred option and timescale, we will complete the work.”

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