NHS fail to fund Hamilton man's vital operation

Oct 2 2008 by Gary Fanning, Hamilton Advertiser

A YOUNG dad suffering from a potentially-fatal condition told this week how he fears for his life after being denied a major operation freely available to similar sufferers in England.

Stuart McKechnie, of Backmuir Crescent, Whitehill, Hamilton, suffers from gastroparesis.

It’s a rare diabetic illness where the stomach cannot empty itself due to a damaged nerve.

The 28-year-old dad-of-three believes an operation for the insertion of a gastric pacemaker would allow his stomach to function normally.

He said, however, that NHS Lanarkshire were refusing to fund the £20,000 cost of the surgery...even though health boards south of the border pay for the operation.

Stuart, who vomits several times a day because of the condition, is in hospital every fortnight.

He had to have two of his toes amputated after he contracted MRSA while being treated at Hairmyres Hospital.

SNP’s Alex Neil said it was ridiculous that Stuart wasn’t getting the operation when patients in England are entitled to do so.

He has vowed to write to NHS Lanarkshire and Scottish health minister Nicola Sturgeon urging them to give Stuart the operation he needs.

Former chef Stuart, who takes morphine every day to ease the pain, told the Advertiser: “My life is going downhill slowly and I am dying painfully.

“If I don’t get this operation, then eventually all my organs will fail and I will die.

“The gastric pacemaker would enable me to eat food properly and I would be able to maintain my diabetes, stop being sick, put on weight and eventually get fit again.”

Stuart has called on the Scottish Government to give the health boards the authority to allow the operation on the NHS.

“There’s legislation in Scotland that doesn’t allow local health boards to pay for private operations,” he said.

“That legislation needs to change because health boards in England and Wales can pay for private operation.

I don’t think that is fair because the NHS is for the whole of Britain.

“Some patients even travel up from England to have the operation in Scotland.

“The ironic thing is that I am in and out of hospital every fortnight and it must be costing about £40,000 a year in total – twice as much as the operation.

“I can be in hospital for four days to several weeks. One time I was in hospital for 12 weeks.”

Stuart said that he was a fit and healthy young man before being diagnosed with gastroparesis four years ago.

He added: “I was a strapping 14 stone before I had gastroparesis but lost about five stone soon after that.

“I used play football, but now I can’t be like other dads and play with my children.

“Sometimes I am in so much agony that I have to crawl up the stairs to the bedroom.

“Some of my neighbours have seen me and are not aware of my illness. Sometimes I’m so bad they think that I am a junkie.

“The doctors can’t tell me how long I have got to live but they have said that I am likely to be in a wheelchair in my 30s.

“I feel as if I have the body of a man in his 60s.

“Every time I go into hospital, I get an infection and catch the MRSA bug.”

Stuart says that he wants to set up a self-help group for fellow gastroparesis sufferers in a bid to raise awareness of the illness.

He added: “Even if it doesn’t help me, it may help someone else.

Alex Neil, SNP Central Scotland MSP, slammed health chiefs for refusing to give Stuart the operation he needs.

He said: “It is ridiculous that he can’t get this operation because he lives in Lanarkshire.

“It’s a postcode lottery and it’s unacceptable.

“If the medical profession say that this operation will help his health, then he should be given the operation and I will write to NHS Lanarkshire on his behalf.

“If NHS Lanarkshire still don’t offer him the operation, then I am happy to take up the matter with the Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon and fight for this man to get the operation.

“I think that NHS Lanarkshire are cutting off their nose to spite their face. NHS Lanarkshire is there to look after the health of their patients.

“All his treatment and medication all adds up and it doesn’t make sense that they won’t spend £20,000 on the operation because at the end of the day they could be paying five times that amount.”

A NHS Lanarkshire spokesman said: “NHS Lanarkshire's priority is to provide the highest quality of care to our patients and we would encourage any one who feels that we have not maintained this standard to contact us directly so we can discuss the matter with them.

“The provision of any treatment is a clinical decision which is made on the basis of whether the treatment is appropriate and will improve the patient's clinical outcome.”