THE medical care of a disabled Winchester couple is being hampered by a change in Southampton’s housing policy.

Simon Strong and his wife, Az Ali, both have spina bifida, a spinal disorder, and need regular access to hospital facilities that are only readily available at Southampton General Hospital.

They had hoped to move from Winchester to Southampton but the city council no longer allows people to relocate without “a proven link to Southampton”.

Mr Strong, 41, cares for his 38-year-old wife full-time at their home in Eastgate Street.

“We went onto the home swop system three-years-ago and asked the local council to swop to somewhere which is closer to Southampton,” Mr Strong said. “Royal Hampshire County Hospital doesn’t have the specialities that we need and it’s particularly critical in an emergency situation.

“Last year it became more critical because my parents decided to sell up their house to move down to West Sussex so we started to appeal to Southampton’s housing lists and they said you don’t have any association so we couldn’t put it an application. Every so often they change the rules without telling anyone.”

The change has meant the couple have been removed from the council’s waiting list – which they have been on for a number of months – despite the specialist care they both need.

“Southampton’s new policy is if you haven’t lived within their boundary in the last three years you would be removed from the waiting list,” he said. “It’s just to save money. I don’t know how this policy works but it seems to me they’ve decided to shake their waiting list and it’s ending up with us and several hundred others losing out.”

“It’s quite scary really,” he added. “We can go in an emergency but its extra time and then there’s the vulnerability of it all. The problem is that my wife has to use a catheter on a regular basis. If she’s gets a kidney infection then her body tissues can swell up and she can’t use it. The only way she can is to go to hospital and have morphine.

Hampshire Chronicle:

“We had a situation a couple of years ago where she had an infection, we went up to Winchester and after two hours they said ‘we haven’t got any urologists, we’re going to have to wait until the morning’.

“The damage that could’ve been done to her kidneys doesn’t bear thinking about. Southampton solved the problem within 20 minutes so it just shows the inadequacies.”

Cllr Warwick Payne, Southampton City Council’s cabinet member for Housing and Sustainability, said: “The government has given councils the power to decide who should be eligible to bid for social housing in their district and many authorities have opted to close their lists to residents from outside their area.

“Southampton took this step earlier this year after a full consultation, and of the respondents, 70 per cent supported the change. It should be noted the city already has around 15,000 people on its housing waiting list, with demand far outstripping supply, leading to lengthy waiting times.

“If residents wish to transfer into Southampton from another area they can either look the private sector, or if they have a social house in their current district they can seek to exchange it with a Southampton tenant through the Homeswapper service.”