KEY POINTS:
Takanini couple Arthur and Barbara Broome will spend Christmas Day still isolated on separate floors of their house after the Ministry of Health failed to get a new lift installed as promised three weeks ago.
Mr Broome, who is dying of cancer downstairs, has been separated from his wheelchair-bound wife upstairs since the couple's previous lift was removed on November 20 - 32 days ago.
The ministry told the Herald on November 29 a new lift would be installed the next day.
After weeks of slow progress, a lift was finally installed this week. But Mrs Broome is unable to use it because it cannot take the weight of her wheelchair, is too small for her chair and has not been certified as safe.
"They have known all the time. I'm in the same chair," she said.
She had repeatedly told the disability service company AccessAble that the planned lift was too small.
But the man at Wolfe Elevators, who was initially assigned to install the lift, had never done such an installation before, his boss had to go to Christchurch to supervise another job and AccessAble finally contacted the lift's Canadian manufacturers to try to sort out the problems. In the meantime, Mr Broome's health has deteriorated badly.
"My poor caregiver is in tears - she hasn't seen him so unwell," Mrs Broome said. "I accept life but I'm in better health than he is. He is stressed for me. I can't help him."
The couple's daughter, Jennifer Tonkin, her husband and son will bring lunch to their parents on Christmas Day from their home in Pukekohe, but they will have to see them separately.
"They are going to have to carry the dishes between us. It's going to be downstairs and upstairs. They are going to form a chain of the three of them," Mrs Broome said.
The ministry's disability services operations manager, Trish Davis, said a lift had been installed, but "a technical problem has been identified that is preventing the lift being fully certified for use".
"AccessAble has contacted the lift manufacturer in Canada in order to gather the necessary information and is working hard to rectify this technical problem," she said.
But the Auckland president of the Disabled Persons Assembly, Sacha Dylan, said there had been a lack of accountability for the project all the way from Wolfe Elevators up to the Minister of Health.
"It's a human problem when you can't come together for Christmas lunch. That is not a technical problem.
"It just shows up a weakness that no one is accountable and guess who pays the price? AccessAble hasn't got the power to hold the lift company accountable, the Ministry of Health hasn't got the power to hold AccessAble accountable."
