NSW health minister Carmel Tebbutt has instructed the Greater Western Area Health Service to “talk through her concerns and offer to review her situation”.

Former business executive Karen Eccleston spoke out this week after “battling bureaucracy” unsuccessfully for a moveable oxygen unit that would allow her a life beyond the four walls of her bedroom.

Suffering from a spinal disease and organ failure, she has been supplied with a 240-volt home oxygen concentrator that does not cover blackouts or outings.

Currently, the 48-year-old living with her elderly parents, must hurry to and from doctor appointments to avoid her oxygen saturation levels becoming “dangerously low”.

Socially isolated and increasingly depressed, she is deemed by the Greater Western as not meeting the criteria for the sought-after addition to her wheelchair.

It reports additional oxygen cylinders are only supplied to clients living 30 kilometres from a health facility and those requiring it around the clock.

“Due to the complexity of the situation”, its spokesperson did not address questions posed by the Daily Liberal on the supply of portable oxygen.

Following Ms Eccleston’s appeal through this newspaper, Ms Tebbutt has offered her sympathies but no assurances of help.

“The minister is sympathetic to Ms Eccleston and the needs of people with chronic diseases,” Ms Tebbutt’s spokesperson said.

“The minister has asked the area (health service) to contact Ms Eccleston to talk through her concerns and offer to review her situation.”

The spokesperson said since 2000/01, the NSW Government had more than doubled funding to its Program of Appliances for Disabled People that aims to provide eligible residents

with a life-long or long-term disability the ability to “live and participate within their community”.

He said Ms Eccleston had been advised that the Greater Western “does not provide portable oxygen cylinders”.