Dialysis daughter's housing headache (From Thurrock Gazette)

Dialysis daughter's housing headache

3:00pm Friday 14th September 2012 in News

A MOTHER whose gravely ill daughter urgently needs her own bedroom for medical reasons is furious at Thurrock Council’s slow response.

Caroline Heapy has asked the authority to convert the garage attached to her council property into a bedroom as her daughter, Gemma, 19, whose kidney transplant has failed, desperately needs her own room to accomodate the dialysis equipment to keep her alive.

Despite Gemma’s renal consultant and head renal nurse writing to the council to express the urgency of the situation, Ms Heapy has been told it will be at least four months until someone from social services can come and make an assessment – and even if the conversion is agreed, it could take up to a year.

The mother-of-three, who lives in Godman Road, Chadwell St Mary, said: “The council is really dragging its heels.

“It hasn’t called me once or even written to me, I’ve had no support at all.

“We don’t want to move, and we have been told by the council it doesn’t have any four bedroom properties available and it is not likely to any time soon, so that’s not an option anyway.”

She added: “The dialysis Gemma is receiving at the hospital isn’t working and it is making her unwell, so to have another kind at home is her only option.

“She is having an operation to fit the new dialysis line next week, we don’t know what we are going to do when she comes home.”

A spokesman from Thurrock Council said: “Housing’s function is as an installer of minor and major adaptation works.

“These works, however, are only carried out following a referral from the relevant practitioner, which is normally an occupational therapist.

“Ms Heapy has already been directed to the council’s social care services, to gain the necessary assessment, and the family will continue to be supported to consider all housing options.”