My Dee is missing out
Family and charity calling for‘integrated’care for people suffering with neurological conditions
A Bothwell woman who has been hit with a mystery neurological condition is missing out on badlyneeded specialist care according to her family.
Dee Mcgreevy 58, can no longer communicate and has to be fed through a drip at the care home where she now lives.
Her family said the former nurse’s life has been “reduced to a mere existence.”
Neurological hospice care providers Sue Ryder are calling on the Scottish Government to help people like Dee by putting in place a strategy for health and social care.
Dee’s husband Thomas explained: “I can’t fault the care provided by the care home, but it doesn’t cater for what I feel are Dee’s needs. At the minute she is in a room 24 hours a day staring at four walls.
“I am crying out to be heard and fighting for the system for a better quality of life for Dee. To see her suffer is so distressing, but on top of that trying to find my way round the system to get support for my wife and my family has been incredibly stressful.
“The problem is, because Dee hasn’t got a diagnosis, no-one has known what to do for her and it feels as if every door has been shut and she’s been left to her own devices.”
The mum-of-two first became ill in March 2012. She passed out after a year of headaches, resulting in an emergency ambulance trip from her Bothwell home to Glasgow’s Southern General.
At one point Dee received surgery to remove tumours, She also contracted hydrocephalus which required a shunt to drain fluid from her brain.
After some time at home her balance disappeared and she became disorientated before her condition deteriorated further and she became cognitively impaired and lost much of her ability to communicate.
Mr Mcgreevy explained: “Several tests were carried out and neurological disorders were offered as explanations, but these proved inconclusive and Dee’s condition is still undiagnosed.”
Dee remained in Hairmyres Hospital for a year “with no therapy or interventions” then eventually moved to a care home.
Sue Ryder describe the current situation for those like Dee as inadequate.
The charity’s Scotland director Pamela Mackenzie said: “People with neurological conditions are not benefitting from integrated health and social care – there is very little meaningful integrated specialist care and few plans to change this. To put this right the Scottish Government needs to show leadership and put in place a strategy for all the health and social care services that people with neurological conditions need. Otherwise they will continue to feel written off and that simply isn’t good enough.”
Mr Mcgreevy who has now taken voluntary redundancy from his job at UWS, said: “The NHS is absolutely wonderful, but every now and then people fall through the cracks and simply don’t get the care they so desperately need.
“That’s why it’s important that the Scottish Government listens to what Sue Ryder is calling for and takes action to make life better for people with neurological conditions by putting in place specialist care that is so desperately needed.”
Scottish Government minister for public health Aileen Campbell said this week: “Health and social care integration has placed a greater emphasis on effective care in community, where each integration authority must develop plans to meet the needs of everyone, including people with neurological conditions.
“We want to ensure that people living with neurological conditions have consistent access to the best possible care and support, which is why we have started the development of Scotland’s first national action plan on neurological conditions to help drive improvements.
“While this work is at an early stage, the new plan will support the development of new neurological condition care standards which could be adopted across health and integrated community services.”