Brave Billy out of danger after taking illegal drug
LAUGHING jubilantly, Charlotte Caldwell and her son Billy leave hospital yesterday after the Home Secretary let him take illegal cannabis oil to treat his lifethreatening seizures.
Billy, 12, was discharged from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where doctors were bowled over by the effects of the oil, which he needs to suppress up to 100 fits a day.
As her son hugged her outside the hospital yesterday, Miss Caldwell said she felt ‘elated’.
Billy still has to return to the hospital twice a day to receive the oil, so they are staying in a nearby flat, paid for by well-wishers.
However, questions remain over what will happen with the special 35-day license granted by Home Secretary Sajid Javid expires.
Miss Caldwell, from Castlederg in County Tyrone, urged Mr Javid and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to meet her so she could make the case to have the treatment legalised for British children with epilepsy that cannot be treated conventionally.
She added: ‘The fact that Billy has been discharged is testimony to the effectiveness of the treatment and underlines how vital it is that every child and every single family affected should have immediate access to the very same medication.
‘Children are dying and suffering beyond imagination.’
Doctors treating Billy are said to have claimed it was a ‘no-brainer’ that the law needed to be changed.
The hospital declined to comment, and the Home Office and Department for Health did not respond to requests for comment.