KEY POINTS:
She's trapped in a wheelchair upstairs. He's dying of cancer downstairs. The lift that once connected them broke down 10 days ago and repeated promises to replace it have come to naught.
Barbara Broome, 76, and her husband Arthur, 75, have only been back in the same house in Takanini since September after Mr Broome suffered a brain lesion and spent 10 years in a rest home. That decade is still blank in his memory.
But he remembers the 44 years that the couple spent together before that, and the two months since he was allowed home.
"It's made me a new man," he said yesterday. "When they first found the cancer, they said I had 18 months. The way I've improved since coming home, I think it will be longer than that."
He has cancer in his bones, his back is broken in four places and he needs morphine to manage the pain.
Mrs Broome has multiple sclerosis and has been in a wheelchair for about 20 years, but when she can reach her husband she can give him his medicines.
"He has come home from hospital to die at home. It was just so important that I have this time with him while he was reasonably well," she said.
But the antiquated lift, which Mr Broome originally installed in the couple's earlier house in Waiuku, has needed replacement for three years. A new lift would cost about $15,000.
Accessible housing adviser Dougald Shirtcliffe hired Pakuranga-based Wolfe Elevators to replace the lift, and told Mrs Broome by email on November 17 that the old lift would be replaced by November 20.
The old lift was removed on schedule. But last night the lift shaft was still a gaping hole without even a barrier to stop people falling into it.
"The Accessible people have gone through a couple of companies that were not able to deliver," Mrs Broome said.
Initially she stayed downstairs when the lift was removed so she could look after her husband. But after a night in an uncomfortable bed, she asked a caregiver who visits twice a day to carry her up the stairs so that she could sleep on her special mattress in her own bedroom, close to her shower, computer, television and medical equipment.
She thought it would be only for a day or two, but it has turned into 10. She is also upset that the company plans to install a new lift that will be too small for her heavy motorised wheelchair.
"I'm trapped up here if there's an emergency," she said.
Mr Broome said he chose to stay downstairs when he came home in September because "it was my wish, and secondly if I need an ambulance to get to hospital I am close to the door". He has an outside door directly into his makeshift bedroom.
"He stayed downstairs because he said we need this space to work things back. He is the most wonderful, considerate man," his wife said.
The Auckland president of the Disabled Persons Assembly, Sacha Gildenlore, said thousands of disabled people like the Broomes were waiting for housing modifications because the Health Ministry disability budget was capped. In contrast, there was no cap on Accident Compensation Corporation funding for modifying the homes of accident victims.
"If you have a spinal injury playing rugby and end up in the Otara spinal unit, you are funded by ACC. When you get out of the spinal unit, everything is paid by ACC," he said. "If you are lying in the same bed in the same spinal unit with a tumour in your spine, you are eligible for up to a tenth of the funding and you will struggle and struggle to get it."
A review by the Auckland Disability Resource centre last year found that waiting times "were widely deemed as unacceptable by all population groups represented in this review".
The Ministry of Health said that the lift would be replaced today.
