Builder offers to install bathroom for disabled pensioner
Woman was unable to wash before amazing intervention
A tearful pensioner will soon feel clean for the first time for months – thanks to the kindness of a Bletchley company.
Bosses at FSG Property Services read in last week's Citizen about 78-year-old Honor Harding who has been forced to wash in a washing-up bowl since January because the council could not afford to fit a shower in her Wolverton bungalow.
The disabled gran of 14 is one of dozens of tenants facing a desperate wait of up to two years for home adaptations to be carried out.
Unable to get into a bath, she was often reduced to tears because she did not feel "properly clean."
Within hours of the Citizen story, Dave Baker, operations director for FSG, offered to fit a level access shower and sparkling new bathroom for free.
The company, which deals with dozens of housing association and council contracts each week, will start the job on Monday (6/7).
He said: "We are delighted to help.
"We've visited Mrs Harding and she was lovely. She was so grateful that she cried."
Meanwhile, some other disabled pensioners have come forward to tell their shower horror stories.
One Loughton couple, Leonard and Agnes Buck have, for the past two years, spent an hour and a half each morning standing on towels beside their bath, helping each other wash.
Agnes, who has a heart condition, is 79 and partially sighted, while Leonard, 82, is crippled with hip and knee problems.
Yet back in April they received a heart-breaking letter from Milton Keynes Council stating they were 137th on a waiting list of 340 people.
Agnes said: "We worked all our lives and paid into the system. It is a disgrace."
But this week, following a Citizen enquiry, the couple's case suddenly shot up the waiting list.
A spokesman said they were now in 34th position and promised the shower would be fitted in September or October this year.
But a disabled 80-year-old in Bletchley was not so lucky and still faces a two-year wait for a walk-in shower.
She had been a tenant for 57 years and, ironically, was a council employee before she retired.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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