Broken lift…

[MrsMomoa2]

My friend has come over from abroad to see her mum who was moved to a nursing home 4 weeks ago (no discussion with her before moving her.. after 7 months in hospital) Her mum is on palliative care.
My friend has had an awful few weeks trying to battle drs/SS to get provision sorted . She was meant to go home last week but extended to Thursday.
She had been getting her mum out in a wheelchair sometimes for a meal out but often just for a walk.
For the last week lift has been broken and they can’t get out. Today she was told they were waiting for parts…My friend had 2 more days with her mum and just wants to get her out in fresh air and a nice lunch .. but lift won’t be fixed… I think this is awful (friend won’t be able to get back so unlikely to see her mum again!)
Can’t believe lift in care home should be broken for over a week… ? (Only 1 lift)

The lift in my mum's care home has been broken for at least 6 weeks. It's an old manor house with one lift. When it broke the residents were downstairs so the staff brought all the beds downstairs and they slept in the living rooms for 10 days or so.

Then it broke again 3/4 weeks ago. This time it broke when most of the residents were in their rooms. Last week the company wrote to the families to apologise and alerting us to the fact that it will be 4/5 weeks before it is fixed and tested sufficiently to transport the residents again. The parts are manufactured in Germany and manufacture alone will take three weeks.

Your poor friend must be hugely frustrated but it seems that lift maintenance is a very expensive and time consuming process.

TBH a week isn't very long at all for this kind of thing. We have lifts at work and have to wait ages for parts. Brexit has mean it can be difficult to get the parts in leading to lengthy delays. Then waiting for availability for an engineer to fit them as not enough available.

Could she take in a picnic hamper or an afternoon tea hamper to share?

Most significant lift parts are made abroad, a lot of them in Italy. Italian factories have a month long shut down in August in which there is literally no way of getting parts over to the UK so you're stuck unless your lift maintenance company/another friendly lift maintenance company has the specific part you need.

A week for a lift breakdown, depending on what it is, would be fairly standard in any month, lift parts are expensive and large so generally have to be ordered in by whichever company is maintaining them. A week in August is a short breakdown.