Mercury Energy Unfairly Accused

Let me first of all say that I have no particular axe to grind in this. If a company botches their customer service horribly, they deserve to be punished. However, in this case I think Mercury Energy should be left alone.

THE STORY
In Mangere, Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday May 29th, power company Mercury Energy cut off a customer who weren't paying their power bill. However, one of the occupants, a 44 year old woman Folole Muliaga, was on an oxygen machine that ran on electricity. Without it she was at risk. Three hours after the power was cut off, she died. Emergency services were unable to revive her.

So Mercury Energy, and the poor bugger that cut off the power, stand publicly admonished for "killing" this woman. The Prime Minister and other people with a complete lack of perspective are publicly criticising Mercury's actions.

There are multiple versions of the facts floating around about how clearly the family pointed out the risks to the contractor. The contractor says he had no idea of the implications. The family says they made it crystal clear.

SOME REALITY AND PERSPECTIVE

Rather than get into any sort of debate about subtleties like duty of care (which clearly lay with the family), I would like to point out some of the actions the family could have taken in the three hours between the power going off and her death.

1- run an extension cord from a neighbour to plug in the machine
2- take the machine and Folole to a nearby house with power
3- call emergency services immediately
4- obtain a system that requires no power (gas cylinders can drive themselves)
5- take the number 327 bus to Middlemore Hospital

One could readily list a large number of less likely preventative measures, including paying the bill on time, having a backup oxygen system on hand in case of power failure (which could easily last for three hours), a portable power generator, and so on.

An uncle paid the power bill the next day.

So, amongst all this fuss and bother, suing the power company for something that is utterly preventable is completely ridiculous. Other examples would be:

1. Suing a water company when you leave your baby in the bath, unattended.
2. Suing a gas station when you run out of gas, because they should have squeezed more petrol in the tank (or perhaps the car manufacturer for not making a larger gas tank)
3. Suing the postal service for delivering a letter containing bad news.

I could go on forever. I do not believe that public sympathy is remotely in line with what is being reported in the press.

Some questions:
a) Is Mercury Energy a healthcare provider or a charity NO
b) Could they have assumed the family would take some mitigating action YES
c) Was the death preventable? YES
d) Who had the most control of the situation? The Family!