Disabled folks in Dumfries and Galloway might die as a result of they can not afford the electrical energy to energy their important medical tools, a councillor warned this week.
Councillor Willie Scobie raised his critical issues at a social work assembly on Tuesday, and the area’s social work chief admitted she was “acutely conscious” of the extreme affect the cost-of-living disaster is having on folks with disabilities.
Dwelling-based medical tools might be extraordinarily energy-intensive, mobility scooters want charging, and stairlifts require a number of electrical energy.
This summer season, English journalist, writer and disabled rights campaigner Dr Frances Ryan, herself dwelling with a incapacity, insisted that the price of dwelling disaster is “going to be a matter of survival for some disabled folks”.
Talking on the council’s social work committee on Tuesday, Stranraer and the Rhins Councillor Willie Scobie mentioned: “I heard on the radio that individuals with incapacity could not have the ability to placed on their medical tools that retains them alive – due to the price of dwelling.
“They will be unable to change it on as a result of they will’t afford the electrical energy. They might die.
“Have we acquired the assets and capability to cope with such points? One with getting the kid poverty figures down, and the opposite one with individuals who is not going to have the power to placed on the vitality to maintain their machines going to maintain them alive?”
Chief social work officer Lillian Cringles informed Councillor Scobie replied that “it’s an actual problem for us transferring forward.”
She continued: “When it comes to the challenges round residents who've disabilities and the alternatives transferring ahead, we’re conscious about the affect, significantly round a few of our aged and grownup providers.
“The component for me is that we might want to make it possible for we maintain as shut a watch as doable on these providers customers.
“However in the end we don’t have any funds the place we will help to pay the electrical energy for instance, nevertheless we have to make it possible for all their advantages are maximised and we have a look at any approach we will supply assist in phrases or charitable functions or by social funds.
“The component that I've a rising concern round is that we've got extra referrals from residents and households particularly which have by no means requested for assist earlier than.
“I do fear that there shall be residents on the market who haven’t requested for assist and don’t know the place to go for it.
“That’s the place a wider marketing campaign of creating certain that folk know the place the providers are and their availability shall be actually vital over the approaching months.”