A sick 76-year-old Aboriginal man was left waiting for more than an hour for a booked taxi last week.
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Harvey Karpany finished up his usual fortnightly run to Woolworths and called a taxi to return him to his Katherine East home last Friday afternoon.
But Mr Karpany was shocked when he spent more than an hour attempting to hail down Katherine Taxi cabs that kept ignoring him.
The company has since reprimanded and penalised the driver for his actions.
“I was frustrated and angry, I am not a healthy person, I have a collapsed lung,” Mr Karpany said.
His carer, Marilyn Karpany, said she called the cab company three times from 2pm until 3.10pm when he was eventually picked up.
“I was waiting out the front of the Smoke-mart, I kept waking out to wave down taxis but they kept going,” Mr Karpany said.
Mr Karpany said he was eventually able to get a taxi to stop but the driver refused to help him lift his groceries into the car.
“I asked the bloke politely for a hand with my groceries, he just told me no and sat in the car.
“No courtesy was given, I don’t know why people are like this,” he said.
Katherine Taxi acting manager Casey Morgan said the driver involved had been dealt with.
"The driver said he did not get out of his car that day for Mr Karpany because it was raining and we agree that is no excuse and we have acted on the complaint," Ms Morgan said.
"I have been on the air and reminded everyone of their responsibilities under our code of conduct.
"I put the driver involved off the road for 12 hours,
"Because many of them live day to day, he earned no income so that is quite a big penalty,” she said.
Ms Karpany said she has heard a few stories of drivers refusing to help elderly people with their groceries.
“Another Aboriginal woman was dropped home and and they just dumped her groceries in the gutter,” Ms Karpany claimed.
“It is not nice, the taxi drivers are employed to provide a service, if they have to get out and grab some groceries they should,” she said.
“You can imagine if they treat me like this what are they doing to other countrymen,” Mr Karpany said.