A gravely ill woman dependent on an oxygen machine died after a power company confronted her over an unpaid bill for £62 and cut off her electricity supply.

Folole Muliaga, 44, who suffered from heart and lung disorders, begged the contractor to switch the electricity back on. But, with the alarm of her oxygen machine sounding, he told her that he was only doing his job.

Within ten minutes she began to suffer a severe headache and said that she could not see. She died within two hours.

Mrs Muliaga, a teacher who moved to New Zealand from Samoa six years ago, is survived by her husband and five children aged from 5 to 18.

Her eldest son, Ietitaia, said that he was with her when the contractor came to the family’s home in south Auckland.

He said that his mother, who was sitting next to her oxygen pump, begged the contractor to give her another chance and restore the power. But the contractor responded that he had a job to do.

“She said, ‘Give us a chance, I need the oxygen’,” said her son. “But he said he was doing his job that was why he cut the power off.”

Mrs Muliaga fell ill immediately but, despite her increasing difficulties with breathing, asked her son not to call an ambulance. When she collapsed he decided to take action.

He said: “I went straight to call an ambulance. When I came back I saw my other brother crying. We couldn’t wake her up. She seemed to be dead.”

A relative, Brenden Sheehan, said that Mrs Muliaga would have been reluctant to seek help because, as a typical Pacific Island mother, she would not have wanted to upset her children. He said that Mercury Energy had cut off the family’s power without giving Mrs Muliago a chance to make good the outstanding bill.

He said that her bills showed that two payments had been made in the past month and there was nothing in the latest bill, issued last Wednesday, about an impending disconnection.

Mr Sheehan added that Mrs Muliaga had been unable to work since February because of her illness. Her husband, Lopa, a chef’s assistant, had been working vastly reduced hours so that he could care for her. James Mounder, general manager of Mercury Energy, claimed that Mrs Muliago and her family had not told the contractor about her medical condition.

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