Outrage after outrage seems to follow every move by our current government.
As they continue to smash the NHS into thousands of disparate pieces, and fail to protect the environment or workers’ rights, they also leave us all to the mercies of a badly regulated and dysfunctional energy market.
Whilst pressures on all of us continue to mount, the consequences for disabled people are even more acute.
For example, many disabled people rely on energy, both to keep warm (more disabled people are housebound and need to keep warm due to their conditions) and crucially, to power their essential electronic equipment.
Keeping warm and keeping equipment going are pretty basic needs, but recently there have been heartbreaking cases where this has been impossible. For example, a family in Wales can’t afford to keep their house heated overnight, so have lost overnight nursing support for their profoundly disabled child as staff can’t safely work in areas below 16 degrees.
Another example of the consequences to the disabled community is the astonishing decision by our energy Minister Grant Shapps to leave planning energy blackout emergency planning to individual disabled people.
Bearing in mind many disabled people need vital equipment like dialysis machines and oxygen machines to actually stay alive, leaving this to personal choice or whatever the phrase of the day is cruel, ill-thought out and will lead to deaths.
This article appeared first on Green World. Read in full here.
