Catherine N Bartholomew,
Dismissed due to incapacity
"There are successful treatments available" states Matthew Broome.
Where? What are they? Why haven't I and others with ME been given access to these treatments?
I am attending an 8-session 'lifestyle management' programme – I can’t call this ‘treatment’ but it is all that is available to me. Challenging negative thoughts doesn’t actually cure anything. And telling someone to ‘relax more’ when they can barely do anything other than sit on the sofa all day would be laughable if it wasn’t my health they are playing with.
I am struggling to cope with my condition which has been getting steadily worse since my second URT infection nearly two years ago. From a dynamic, active person, optimistic about my future, I have become a shuffling recluse unable to keep myself, my clothes or my house clean. I live alone and cannot afford paid help as I lost my NHS job because of my ME.
Break a leg and you are treated with traction and a plaster cast. You will provoke commiseration and you can look forward to the leg healing.
A diagnosis of asthma will engender concern and will be met with sympathy and an inhaler.
Have the misfortune to develop ME and you find yourself without treatment, without answers, without understanding, without empathy, without a cure. For the record, ME is not a lifestyle choice or a psychiatric condition (check it out with the WHO)!
Pessimism? Pessimism is a by-product of the current system and the lack of support and lack of respect we face everyday.
Competing interests: None declared
1 comment:
I wonder if the authors of the BMJ article will read Professor Malcolm Hooper's recent complaint to the MRC about PACE trials. There is a 400 page report to support his complaint.
No, they will pretend it doesn't exist.
I have also just read of the secret documents on ME kept by MRC.
I don't know how they sleep at night. They are criminals.
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