Times Letters:
"The assertion "many doctors believe ME has a psychological rather than a physical cause" contradicts the Royal College of GPs, which reclassified ME as a physical illness in August 2008. It also opposed the view of Lord Darzi, the Dept of Health, the WHO and biomedical research. The statement may be rephrased to say a minotrity of psychiatrists think ME is psychological.
In fact, many doctors are hoping that NICE guidelines will be amended to reflect current understanding of ME as physcial in original and phsysiological in its development, so as to provide a more practical model for general practice.
Dr Matthew Harris
Exeter, Devon"
2 comments:
Concern at closure of ME Clinic
Ballymena Times: 29 September 2009
By Staff reporter
http://www.ballymenatimes.com/news/C...-ME.5684375.jp
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.
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Occupational Therapist, but it was withdrawn recently.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?
........
The Belfast Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride and his
officials are tasked with advising the Health Minister, and they bear
much primary responsibility for this outstanding example of NHS
failure. In 2002 the CMO for England & Wales launched an initiative
to develop specialist ME services nationwide. In 2006 £8.3m was ring-
fenced and used to establish new clinics. These ME services in
England are as yet primitive and unsatisfactory. But at least a
beginning has been made there. On 12th November 2007 we met Dr
McBride, urging him to follow the recent example of his English
counterpart. He dismissed our suggestion in a few words. Since then
the only progress made has been backwards.
Now that their failure has been exposed, the Minister and his civil
servants are running for cover. ME treatment is available they say
"ranging from primary and community care to specialist regional
neurology services, depending on assessed individual needs". Local
MLAs and MPs know this is almost pure fiction. This week Margaret
Ritchie the Minister for Social Development said that ME patients
among her constituents “face daily a battle with health care
providers to receive appropriate care and treatment, and have
difficulties getting referrals to specialists”. GPs know little about
this emerging illness, and there are almost no local hospital
consultants with enough experience to guide them.
Compulsory NHS standards for the care of ME patients were published
in August 2007. They stipulate that there must be expert hospital
provision for adults, adolescents and children. GPs must be competent
to diagnose and manage ME, and diagnosis must be arrived at within
3-4 months. Doctors must assist ME patients in applications for
Social Security benefits. Bedbound patients must receive a full range
of domestic support at home from Social Services. The Minister and
his DOH officials are careful not to refer to these mandatory
national guidelines - for the good reason that very few of these
services are being provided by the NHS in Northern Ireland.
With little additional financial outlay, the ME clinic at the City
Hospital could easily be rescued. Jayne Perkes, the popular and ME-
competent Senior Occupational Therapist, is still in post and is
still funded. NIMEA know a number of ME-experienced and patient-
friendly physicians who could head a revived unit. If one of them
will accept a new and properly-funded part-time post, patient
throughput could easily be raised to previous levels. The clinic must
of course be free to accept referrals from all health boards across
the Province. One further stipulation: the NICE ME guidelines of 2007
emphatically refused to endorse the unproven theory that ME is a
psychiatric condition. Never again therefore, must ME patients in
Northern Ireland be forced to accept automatic and inappropriate
psychiatric referrals.
The ME Clinic at Belfast City Hospital was the only specialist
facility we had, at one time serving a large Province-wide patient
population of about 7000. It can be salvaged. We hope that MPs and
MLAs of all parties at Stormont will exert themselves to save it.
Yours, Ken Hull, Chairman,
Horace Reid, Patient.
Northern Ireland ME Association,
28 Bedford Street,
Belfast BT2 7FE
Johnston Press Digital Publishing ©2009
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