Dear Respiratory Friends today we are publishing real story of one patient with asthma from UK: Disabled Lady with Brittle Asthma to be
forced out of her own private home, because a housing association wants to do
works on an estate.
I live in
Cheshire and have brittle asthma. This means I am hypersensitive to dust
especially building dust. The local housing association are to carry out works
on 7 blocks of flats, all within 300 yards of my home. I will therefore have to
leave our home for 4 months whilst the works are carried out. I am also
disabled, and cannot carry more than the weight of 2 pints of milk.
If you the
reader were to be effectively evicted from your own property for 4 months
through no fault of your own, how would you feel.
The housing
association do not believe that the disturbance that they are going to cause is
enough that I will have to move out, and that they think that I am the one
being unreasonable in my request. This is despite them having all the medical
evidence from my doctors and other specialists, and me previously having to
move out during previous works.
At birth I had
eczema and later at puberty, I developed type 1 brittle asthma with atopy. This means that I am hypersensitive to chemicals, food types
straw and irritants, such as building dust, paint and wet or dry cement. They
will either affect my eczema or asthma.
I am affected
by this type of pollution, up to half a mile away.
I am not
unique, there are about 250,000 people with brittle asthma in the UK, and 10% of the population have asthma at
some level. There are two types of asthma. My type I have several asthma
attacks per day, and I need to get away from the cause. Otherwise my breathing
will get worse until I will have to go to hospital. The other type of asthma is
people who are generally fine, but very occasionally come into contact with
something that will cause a severe asthma attack, which can often be fatal.
We have set up
an e petition regarding respiratory disease and asthma sufferers. This is
non-political in the sense that it is not party political, and would benefit
practically everyone. We have been going since May 2012, and we are well inside
the top 6.5% of current e petitions. This is for a cause that is not aimed at
giving the beneficiaries of the e petition financial gain, so you can see it
has much merit.
What we are
proposing is that people who have been certified by their doctor to be
hypersensitive to anything related to external pollution, which affects them
within their own home (either purchased or with a 6 month tenancy or more) can
ask to be moved to a suitable accommodation out of harm’s way.
The housing
association have a guest flat which is far enough away with a bed a suttee and
a hob, where I could go, but they won’t let me have it because they say that my
requests are unreasonable. They also have all sorts of other properties all
over the north west.
As you can see
I am not looking for luxury or anything that will cost them much at all, just a
clean dwelling that does not affect my
asthma, that I can stay in permanently. They have tried to say that they have
day centres I can go to, but as a disabled person, I can’t move every day to a
day centre.
I think it is
disgraceful that a housing association can make someone leave their own home,
and not think that they have any responsibility for their actions. It is
against human rights law, but I cannot afford to take them to court. It is my
opinion, that in these conditions the boot should be on the other foot.
Asthma UK say
that the UK Government is looking at prevention rather than than cure. If this
is the case, then this is what they have been looking for, as there are on
average 219 emergency cases of asthma
each day sent to hospital, and 3 of
these die.
Most building
companies and councils and the like have spare accommodation that can be used
for this type of issue. Other companies may need to make a very small provision
in their building contracts for people like me.
The massive
savings to the country will be the following:
1. Fewer deaths (currently 3 per day from
asthma)
2. Fewer admissions to hospital (219 per day
from asthma alone currently)
3. Fewer doctor’s appointments
4. Fewer days off sick
5. Increase in wages or financial security for
RD & A sufferers
6. Increased productivity for the employee
7. Increased productivity for the employer
8. Savings for the NHS
9. Fewer respiratory drugs needed by patients
of the NHS
All of this
available just for making provision for the estimated 250,000 people who suffer
even low level pollution from works. Over time this can be even more accurately
predicted, with the knowledge of where these respiratory disease and asthma
sufferers live.
I hope this
makes perfect sense to you, and that we can work together to get these changes
implemented.
REF:
Respiratory disease and asthma e petition.
