Candlelight, cold and early nights

AT least 2,700 people die every winter from not being able to afford spiraling heating bills. A government-commissioned report revealed there are more people dying from being too poor to heat their homes than there are those being killed in road accidents. £30billion profits made by the Big Six power companies over the last five years have been exposed. Fuel poverty in the UK has soared while they have made a fortune. In 2004 1.2 million people were living in fuel poverty. This year (2011) it’s 4.1million. Between 2004 and 2009, the extra amount families in badly insulated and poorly heated homes needed to spend to keep warm went up by 50% (£740million to £1.1billion). The EHU (Extra Help Unit) is the place where cases of fuel hardship are referred. It is run by Consumer Focus, part-funded by government and industry. Graham Smith, the acting deputy head, said he had five or six cases in the past few months where old people convinced themselves a neighbour must have tapped into their meter and must be using their electricity because their bills had gone up so much! He said they stopped using their electricity altogether and were just using candles instead. “They get fixated on it”, he said. He thought it to be the early stages of dementia and referred a lot of people to social services. Many people are having their disability living allowance stopped; they fight it but are in limbo and have no money. Graham said "In one case recently, the customer had no money for his prepayment meter. He had made a cry for help to the supplier before who had given him emergency credit, but when he came back with the third cry for help, the company couldn't do any more. He had rung the local fire brigade in the past, and they had come out and given him extra blankets to keep warm. Now he's back to us in the same situation. His benefits review has been revoked and he'll have to apply again. He has said he will have to rely on the fire brigade again to keep warm.” Graham reports that people have been going to bed at 7pm to save a couple of quid because they can't keep their heater going, they've taking a whole day off energy and using candles and getting takeaways rather than cook, and going to bed because they can’t afford to have the heating on. Typical, I personally know someone who has substituted candles for the central heating and has take-aways or salads and raw foods, or skips meals entirely and sleeps it away, has turned the hot water off, has a bath once a week and has a problem of stale clothes due to being wrapped in lots of layers and not changing them – simply because the ludicrous fuel prices eat away at the money for everything else. It creates mould in the house and cupboards. Anyway people who are the most vulnerable and people facing disconnection are put in touch with the Extra Help Unit by MPs or energy suppliers. In its Glasgow office the EHU has 13 case workers. They are trained by the Samaritans to cope with the stress of the job and the distress of those they are helping. Since 2008, the electricity and gas regulator, Ofgem, has required energy suppliers to give more help to customers falling into debt before disconnecting them. They instal prepayment meters with the rate set at a level that collects some of the debt. The cases that go to the EHU now are more complicated - many people are on the point of disconnecting themselves because they have no money for the meter. Graham says a common plight is that of single parents in a house with three or four kids, one with a disability. The size of the fuel bill cuts into their budgets, and they have to go without something in some form. They might have to survive in a house that's not adequately heated, which has health implications. There are endless stories of great hardship. Even a water engineer who had been used to a 45,000 pound per annum salary finds himself in the fuel poverty trap. It came as a shock when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, out of the blue, and wasn’t able to go back to work. He is at home, and when his community sick pay period came to its end he went on to statutory sick pay plus higher-rate disability living allowance. His immunity is compromised, he needs constant heating, he has to use the washing machine much more, and his energy bills have soared. Not surprisingly he and his partner quickly fell behind with the fuel bills and needed a grant from the Macmillan cancer charity to pay them. This man is one of many cases that come to Macmillan's attention. People constantly worry about turning the heating down or whether they can afford to put it on, and don't get quality of life. It makes you feel very low. People like these need help and it's not there. Just imagine how they feel. And they, and we, go through life contributing in tax and insurance. Humanity gets up in the morning and goes to their little box to work and goes home to their little box and spends their life in a little box. It’s not even a comfortable little box anymore but now a cold little box. When soaring bills leave elderley folk convinced their electricity is being stolen, and a guy has to call the fire brigade for urgent blankets, SOMETHING'S WRONG ISN'T IT?