Many of us who are chronically ill are also chronically poor. If you are so unlucky as to live in zone NO2, a new term I learned this year, you are lost in a money trap. Then there is little help with a 70-90 per cent support of an average price that goes far beyond the limits of reasonableness. Which is far higher than what one should be able to expect from a natural resource that we jointly own as citizens of Norway. And which hardly costs a cent to produce. Not to mention the new online rental model that prevents you from doing the dishes, laundry and making coffee at the same time, in an everyday life where you have 10 minutes of daily “freshness” to get rid of some housework. Many sick people need electricity to operate various devices and gadgets that are vital to life, and which make everyday life a little more bearable. It is an irony of fate to be born in cold and harsh Norway, with cold urticaria. Not just me, but all my children too. My children and I need electricity to avoid painful rashes, anaphylaxis and a host of other inhibiting and frightening symptoms. To keep the disease more or less at bay, we are completely dependent on an even temperature in all rooms. Moving from one temperature in one room to a completely different temperature in another room can be fatal. So here you sit, on the minimum rate of disability benefits and have to try to keep the family alive while you chew antihistamines that don’t work and have the EpiPen within reach. A completely ordinary woman, law-abiding citizen, voluntary charity worker to contribute to society, chronicler and mother. I have become a keen juggler with the bills. It’s an ability I wish I didn’t need. In May, I received a net salary increase of NOK 959 per month. I am grateful! But the interest on the municipal mortgage I incurred in August last year has already risen by over NOK 600. A loan I was granted in a time when you could always pay your bills well before they were due. It feels so long ago that it has become a vague memory. The sober food budget is no longer enough to even shop sober. And the electricity bills have multiplied from 2020. Thank goodness I don’t have a license and need petrol! But after all, I am rich. I’m too rich for welfare. I’m too rich for housing benefit. As far as I can read, ground and auxiliary allowance are not triggered by electricity demand. Helfo does not refund the electricity bill. And as far as I know, you don’t get electricity distributed at the aid center. I’m just not too rich for food distribution and alms. Happy winter my dear fellow citizens. Rich or poor, I feel for you.
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Power on blue prescription – Statement
