Woman (95) unable to trigger fall alarm for more than a week as phone line not fixed

A 95-year-old woman has been disconnected from the outside world and unable to trigger her fall alarm, prompting a concerned relative to contact Pricewatch in search of help.

The relative – called Jim – said that his aunt’s phone stopped working 10 days ago and the fault was reported to Eir, which said it would fix it within 48 hours.

A further five days passed before Jim made contact with us.

“They were told that she relied on the phone not only as her only contact with the outside world, but more importantly because she wears an alarm button that is connected via her phone line,” Jim wrote.

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“If she falls, which has happened many times, she presses the alarm and help arrives. If she does not have the alarm, in the worst-case scenario a fall involving a head injury could result in death.”

Jim said that he had explained this to Eir and all it could commit to was having an engineer on site within 48 hours.

“I cannot believe that this is acceptable to leave someone so vulnerable so isolated.”

We contacted Eir within minutes of receiving the mail and it responded immediately.

Less than an hour after we had highlighted the issue with the company we heard back from our reader who said a senior executive with the company had arranged for technicians to look into the problem as a matter of urgency.

In a statement issued to The Irish Times a spokeswoman said Eir “sincerely apologise for the delay in addressing this issue”.

She said a technician had attempted contact but “they could not implement a resolution as the issue stemmed from internal wiring within the property, not the telecommunications network”.

“Our resolution team has since made contact and successfully established a temporary solution to reinstate the service, but a permanent fix awaits the completion of necessary repairs by the property’s landlord. We understand the critical nature of this service and apologise for the distress caused. We will keep working with the customer until the issue can be permanently resolved.”

She also highlighted Age Friendly Care, Eir’s dedicated customer care service for older customers and their families or appointed authorised users.

It is a “specially trained team of customer care and technical support agents [who] are available to answer questions and provide assistance”.

Anyone who needs to speak to Eir’s Age Friendly Care team can call 1800 252 252 Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm.