Cancer patient: New hope after medicinal cannabis move
The family of medicinal cannabis cancer patient Caroline Burns say their fight to her keep alive has been boosted after hospital consultants were given the go-ahead to prescribe the drug.
The Home Office has given hospital doctors the clearance to administer the drug from next month.
It means that patients no longer have to get the permission of a government expert panel.
Caroline, 35, from Cumbernauld and whose plight was highlighted by The Sunday Post, has been kept alive after taking medicinal cannabis for three years.
It follows a three-month prognosis by doctors in 2015. But she was denied permission to apply to the expert panel by her specialists. They said they did not have proper guidance or medical trials to support her application.
Hope for the family lies in a medicinal cannabis course being launched in London next month.
Caroline said: “I am overjoyed by the Home Office go-ahead to allow specialists to prescribe medicinal cannabis. A huge obstacle has been taken out my path. “I now need to persuade my oncologists.
“Hopefully, this will be a move forward.”
Her dad, Pat O’hara, said: “Getting Caroline medicinal cannabis on the NHS is like climbing Mount Everest. “We have now reached base camp, maybe even further.”