'Horrified': 98-year-old goes to streets for help in long phone outage

An elderly Canberra woman's carer and neighbour have criticised Telstra's handling of an issue that led to the 98-year-old heading to the streets at night in her dressing gown for help.

Red Hill resident Avis Parry was left without a phone for more than two weeks and had to seek help from strangers when she was unable to contact her carer and her neighbours weren't home.

Avis Parry, who was unable to contact her carer when her landline stopped working because of an outage that took more than two weeks to be resolved.Credit: Elesa Kurtz

Mrs Parry's landline went down on February 16, when Telstra said a damaged cable in Manuka cut services for 108 customers.

After finding her neighbours weren't home, Mrs Parry said she had to rely on the kindness of "a true good Samaritan" after one man ignored her request for help.

"I'm not a nervous woman, but it's just disconcerting at my age when you've got a whole night ahead of you with no means of communication," she said.

Mrs Parry, who lives alone, said "a lovely young woman" pulled over and helped her contact her carer, Gloria Stott, who is on call to help her with any issues.

Ms Stott said Mrs Parry needed to speak to her because she had fallen and hurt her arm, but wasn't able to contact her without a working landline.

She was "horrified" to receive a call from a stranger at 9pm to say Mrs Parry had been looking for help in the streets.

"That telephone's her lifeline," Ms Stott said.

"She knows she's got someone at the other end of the line, so to go from that to nothing when you're 98 and feeling vulnerable, it's a shock.

"Thankfully, she met a lovely woman that helped her. But I said to her, ‘Avis, you could’ve got hit by a car because nobody’s expecting an old lady in the street at that time of the night’. Or she could've met someone who wasn't so good."

Ms Stott and Mrs Parry's neighbour Doug Thorne criticised Telstra's handling of the issue, with Mrs Parry's phone not reconnected until March 5 – 17 days after the line went down.

Mr Thorne showed the Sunday Canberra Times several messages from Telstra promising power would be restored by certain times in February, but those times passed without the problem being resolved.

Mr Thorne and Ms Stott said their attempts to convey the seriousness of the situation to Telstra fell on deaf ears.

"There was no support the whole way through," Ms Stott said.

"It was just a ‘who cares’ attitude, which, when you’re putting people’s lives at risk, that attitude shouldn’t be there.

"Basically, the attitude you get is that it doesn’t matter and she’s not the only one [experiencing an outage]."

Mrs Parry was already due to temporarily enter respite care while Ms Stott underwent surgery, but Ms Stott said she would have had to go into care regardless while she didn't have access to a phone.

"Without that, she’s not safe at home, really," Ms Stott said.

"They offered a mobile telephone, but that’s really not of much use [to Mrs Parry].

"If you don't know how to use it, it’s not a device that’s handy, is it?"

A Telstra spokesman said restoring power to Mrs Parry and the other 107 customers affected by the outage had been complex.

The spokesman said after identifying the issue that caused the outage, more than 200 metres of cables had to be replaced and reconnected, which caused the delay in restoring power.

"When customers report a landline fault, they are usually offered the choice of either a number diversion to a mobile phone or the offer of a loan mobile phone," he said.

"In the case of Mrs Parry, the offer of an interim device was declined but her number was diverted to her carer’s mobile phone.

"Telstra does offer a priority service for customers that have a medical condition and documentation from their doctor. Mrs Parry currently does not have that service in place but [we] are happy to provide the documentation."