Sepsis amputee says she has no dignity in tiny Milton Keynes home

Kim Smith, 61, had her hands and legs amputated when she contracted sepsis

A woman whose hands and legs had to be amputated when she contracted sepsis has said living in a small home gives her "no dignity or independence".

In November 2018 Kim Smith, from Milton Keynes, was on holiday in Spain when a urine infection turned into a blood infection and she was put into a coma.

Her limbs were removed when she returned to the UK.

She is struggling to find a larger home but Milton Keynes Council said there was "a shortage".

The quadruple amputee, 61, has lived in a bungalow allocated to her by a housing association for about four years but said it was not suitable for her needs.

"My bungalow is more for somebody who's disabled or elderly, but not in a wheelchair," Ms Smith said.

The doors are not wide enough and the rooms are not big enough rooms for her to turn her wheelchair.

There is not much room to manoeuvre in the small kitchen

"So I'm really confined to my living room and the main bedroom at night," she explained.

"I can't even go to the bathroom by myself because my wheelchair won't fit in there, and my chair can't get next to the toilet."

She said the kitchen was too small to allow her to turn her chair "without smashing into the cupboards and doing some damage".

"It's really hard. It's quite depressing really," she said.

Ms Smith is also on an NHS waiting list for a hand transplant.

"It's not good for my mental health to be stuck in one room all the time. I've got no freedom, I can't move around and do things like I'd like to do," she added.

"If I had a big enough property I'd have so much more independence. I could do more in the kitchen, I could go into the bathroom and have that independence of going to the bathroom by myself.

"So, there's no dignity, there's no independence and it's really demoralising all the time to have to suffer this."

Ms Smith said she would like a home big enough to accommodate her needs and return some "dignity" to her life

She said she had been on a list at Milton Keynes Council for more than a year as well as some housing associations.

"The government needs to make councils build more wheelchair-accessible homes - all over the country there's such a huge shortage of them - everywhere. It's crazy," she said.

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said the government was "boosting the supply of accessible homes across the country and will change building regulations to ensure more newbuilds are accessible".

They added it was "vital disabled people are able to adapt and improve their homes" and said councils had been given £4.8bn to deliver half a million adaptations since 2010.

The spokesperson said it was the responsibility of local councils to determine who qualified for social housing and to set waiting list policies.

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A Milton Keynes Council spokesman said: "We're actively searching for an acceptable property to which we can make further adaptations.

"Because readily accessible bungalows and flats are hard to come by, it may be the property is selected first and then we do the work which is why some properties have been suggested that aren't yet suitable."

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