Will the person nearest my Elly at this moment, give her the Kiss-of-Life and drag her up off the floor! I can do nothing these days because she worries about me so much.
Is she upright again?
Well then I will begin.
Following a Power cut on a Monday the other week I have experienced fluctuation with the light levels every evening. At first I thought it was my eyes. The lights dimmed but did not go out. After about an hour or sometimes two they went back to normal. Now I am not a heavy user of electricity. Lights in the living room were on as were the computer & the radio. My oil fired central heating was pumping away and the place was warm. The fridge/freezer was working normally and several clocks through the house were showing the correct time. The only problem was with the lights.
This continued to happen three nights in a row. A little worried that the power might be cut again I decided to phone my provider NIE (Northern Ireland Electricity) on the Thursday evening. I spoke to a very nice young lady and she seemed rather puzzled by my query. She was aware of the break in power on the Monday and said she would pass the message on to the engineers so that they could check things out the next day.
I explained very briefly my health situation and my need for heat, light and access to a working telephone in case of emergency. Immediately she said “You are not on our Critical list!”
“Critical List” I said “What’s that?”
She told me that NIE offers a critical care information service to customers who have health issues or are dependent on life supporting electrical equipment. Once registered with NIE they can provide up to date information during a power cut or a planned interruption. If I need to call them my number would be recognised and I would be given priority.
I never realised this service was available. Did You?
So if you live in Norn Iron and know of anyone in any of the situations listed above then tell them to call NIE. If you live anywhere else in the wider world, check out your electricity provider. Who knows when you might need the service I hope you never do.
Grannymar 
That’s sounds like an interesting Blogroll to be on 🙂
Did they send out an engineer to check you over 😉
That sounds very interesting.
I’m going to check and see if the ESB here down south have something similar and put my Grandmothers name on it.
Steph, Alas no Toy boy to check me out!
Robert, I am sure there quite aq few people both up in NI and down south who might benifit from being on the list.
I used to work with a business partner who was a kidney patient and did home dialysis, he was on a similar critical list here and when Yorkshire Water started making water rationing (this was ten or fifteen years ago when they ran out of water in Yorkshire) they had to keep the whole of his estate online as they couldn’t just leave one house connected.
He made sure that everyone on the estate knew that it was thanks to him that they all had water.
Years ago when I lived in Dublin, we were fortunate to be on the same lines as the Airport so we were never without power for long.
Grannymar
They’re talking about you again over at GD’s. Better get over there fast and add your own voice!
Oops! on my way….
What I don’t understand and it seems to be a universal issue, is why these services are kept secret. I mean, why should you have to call to find out that such a thing exists. It’s true of a lot of social services, unless you ask the right questions you will never find out about them.
Baino they are like official secrets! Thus the reason for my blog post.