Highs And Lows With The Hoist

Highs And Lows With The Hoist

'Twas on a Friday morning
The hoist engineer came to call;
He checked it out to make quite sure
That everything was cool.
And so it was; until he saw
The date was overdue.
He said, "This needs to be replaced -
We'll order one that's new!"

(With apologies to Flanders and Swann)


Until September last year, when the carers began to hoist Mum on a regular basis, it had been rarely used. Standing in the corner, its two feet splayed out like a bird's legs, it was there "just in case." If Mum felt weak, or could not manage to stand up and do the "twiddle" manoeuvre to get her from bed to glider, or glider to chair, the hoist was always fully charged and ready to use, to facilitate moving her.

It has been serviced regularly, and we have never had any qualms about using it; Mum, of course, was not (and is still not) keen on being lifted in the sling, but she is getting used to it.

After the service check on the Friday morning, the engineer explained the hoist was just over four and a half years old, and therefore "out of time." It was still safe to use, but a new one would be delivered on Monday morning.

When the carers arrived at lunch time, they proceeded to get Mum up. At first, the hoist worked perfectly, but then it suddenly threw a wobbly; however hard the control buttons were pressed, the machine would not operate the "up" instruction, to lift Mum from the glider so she could be seated in her chair.

Fortunately, the hoist then remained in the "down" position, so at least Mum was not left swinging like a chandelier attached to the ceiling, or clinging on to a malfunctioning ski lift, half way up a mountain!

In fact, I understand a hoist will always return to the down position, but that still left us in a quandary: how to extricate Mum from the hoist. We managed it by dint of taking her weight evenly between us, and lifting her on to the chair.

However, that wasn't going to solve the problem for the other calls the carers would be making later that evening. We rang the company who provided the hoist, and were given the emergency out of hours number. The response was quite impressive;  a technician arrived at 7.30, and found the problem lay with the remote controller. We would need a new one and clearly this could not wait until Monday. The technician said he had another three calls to make, after which he would go back to the depot, collect the new controller, and bring it to us; it would take him about three hours before he could get back, but we were quite happy to agree to that. In the event, he returned at 11.20, plugged in the new controller, and made sure it worked. It had a much more positive response when the buttons were pressed, and the hoist was ready for action once more. We were very impressed by the service and, in spite of having had a very long day (and evening), the young man was still smiling - and still had another call to get to!