A year to the day that Folole Muliaga died, a coroner has retired to consider the cause of her death and lessons that can be learned from it.
Mrs Muliaga, 45, a morbidly obese woman who was using an oxygen machine, died three hours after a contractor disconnected her power over an unpaid bill of $168.40.
The contractor, whose name is suppressed, was an employee of Vircom, which was contracted by power company Mercury Energy to carry out its disconnections.
For eight days, coroner Gordon Matenga has heard from a number of people connected to the case, including the Muliaga family, Mercury Energy, Vircom and health professionals who treated Mrs Muliaga.
Mr Matenga said he realised the inquest had been hard on family members and other parties involved. He gave no indication how long he would take to release his report.
Summing up today, lawyers for the Muliaga family called for regulation of Mercury Energy, a state-owned enterprise, and for hospitals to take greater care in how they deal with Pacific Island patients.
Olinda Woodroffe, lawyer for Mrs Muliaga's husband Lopaaeva, also said the family was not aware Mrs Muliaga was close to dying and that Counties-Manukau District Health Board should have informed them.
But Mercury Energy lawyer Adam Ross and Vircom's lawyer Garth Gallaway said the Muliaga family's lawyers' two main arguments had an inconsistency.
He said they were asking Mr Matenga to believe the family did not know how seriously ill she was, but that Mercury and the Vircom contractor should have known not to cut Mrs Muliaga's power off.
Mr Ross said Mercury would not have had Mrs Muliaga's power cut off had it known she needed it for medical reasons.
He said Mercury Energy would welcome any useful recommendations but that the coroner should realise they would have industry-wide implications.
He added that Mercury Energy had taken numerous steps to ensure the Muliaga incident was not repeated.
These included the adoption of Electricity Commission guidelines on vulnerable customers, greater information to consumers about what to do if they had a medical need for power, and to now treat all customers as vulnerable.
Mr Gallaway, for Vircom, said the coroner need not make any recommendations to the company.
He said contractors had been given plenty of training since the Mrs Muliaga's death on how to deal with such situations, and that anything more prescriptive would not allow contractors to use common sense in similar situations.
Mr Gallaway said the contractor had faced a gruelling cross-examination at the court and had emerged with his reputation intact.
He had shown the day before and immediately after disconnecting the Muliaga household that he would not go ahead with disconnections if he was told there were medical reasons, and he was not given those instructions at the Muliaga house.
Mr Gallaway said the fact the contractor saw Mrs Muliaga with oxygen tubes in her nose was not enough reason for the contractor to deduce that she was dependent on electricity.
Counties-Manukau District Health Board lawyer Adam Lewis said Middlemore Hospital's treatment of Mrs Muliaga had been of a high standard.
Mr Lewis said it was important for the DHB to recognise Mrs Muliaga's right to make decisions about her own care, including what she told her family about her illness.
He said the fact Mrs Muliaga's eldest son Ietitaia asked his mother if he should call an ambulance when the power was cut off - an offer Mrs Muliaga refused - showed he had some awareness she was very ill.
Karen Rose, lawyer for nurse Diana Hart, who visited Mrs Muliaga at her home on several occasions, said her care was exemplary and no adverse recommendations should be made about her work.
The hearing ended in unusual fashion as a woman unknown to the parties tried to speak to the coroner. She yelled as she was ejected from the court.
Mr Matenga added that he did not have jurisdiction to rule on a family claim for costs related to the hearing.
Family spokesman Brenden Sheehan afterward said the claim was connected to the delay in holding the inquest.
Chief Coroner Judge Neil McLean was originally going to preside but eventually removed himself after the family said he had connections to a Christchurch man who owned shares in a business that contracts to Mighty River Power, the parent company of Mercury Energy.
Mr Sheehan said the family would await the coroner's report before deciding if it wanted to take legal action on any other matters.
