‘Cannabis the only option for my dying daughter’

AN Irish teenager who is the longest living person in the world with a rare illness is faced with leaving home to be treated with medicinal cannabis.

And her mother says that she feels utterly helpless as her daughter has a ‘death sentence’ over her.

Tina McElligott, 16, from Kilflynn just outside Tralee, Co. Kerry, is running out of time in her battle with Alpers’ disease which causes dozens of violent seizures daily.

Her condition has taken a turn for the worse over the past few days, with the teenager experiencing severe pain. Her mother Mags said: ‘I still think what Tina is enduring can’t be happening.’

Tina is the only Irish person with this disease. Her cousin Sarah Crowe, 13, who also suffered from Alpers’, died last year after a brave battle.

The disease is a progressive neurological disorder that starts in childhood and is often complicated by serious liver disease.

The life expectancy of those with the disease is from three months to 12 years after onset.

A Health Products Regulatory Authority report published last month advised that, if a policy decision is taken to permit cannabis under an access programme, it should be for the treatment of certain patients.

For Tina’s mother Mags, the constant pain and seizures her ‘beautiful’ daughter experiences is heart wrenching and soul destroying, and that doctors have told her cannabis is her ‘only option’.

She said: ‘She screams with pain so badly, I cry with her. I can feel her pain and I feel no-one could or can do anything for her.

‘Doctors have told us that we have no other option but to try medical cannabis on her if she has any chance of staying with us.

‘We can’t get medicinal cannabis for this condition in Ireland yet.’

Mags is now hoping to raise funds to secure treatment abroad for her daughter. She said: ‘We need to go abroad but the cost is frightening as it’s going to be more than €300,000 in either a European country or in the US.

‘It all depends on how much we raise and the doctors will guide us to which country we need to go to. ‘Tina’s life depends on this.’ Donations can be made to gofundme.com/k4uju-tinas-medical -treatment.