Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Concern at closure of ME Clinic


By Staff reporter

SIR - The recent closure of Northern Ireland's only ME Clinic at Belfast City Hospital was not an accident. Poor long term policy planning had made it inevitable. From the beginning the consultant in charge was given no remuneration of any kind; he worked voluntarily. Originally the unit was the regional referral centre, with many patients coming from South Down, Mid Antrim, and west of the Bann. There was always a waiting list. But in 2007 it began refusing patients from outside Belfast. F

It was a profound mistake for this clinic to be managed by the Psychiatric Department in Windsor House. Naturally many patients found psychiatric classification inaccurate and insulting, and many boycotted the unit for that reason. Funding was in place for a second Occupational Therapist, but it was withdrawn recently. Notice of closure was quietly circulated internally in July 2009, but patients and MLAs did not find out until September.

The Department of Health at Stormont says that closure of the clinic was due to the “pressure of competing priorities.” There are 6750 M.E. patients in Northern Ireland, 4935 patients with breast cancer, and 2445 with Multiple Sclerosis. Which DOH civil servant decided that, alone among these different clinical conditions, only ME patients are to have no specialist unit?

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