BBC war reporter f lies to Mexico for £62k MS op after rejection by NHS
A FORMER BBC war correspondent has been forced to spend £62,000 of her own money after being refused NHS treatment for multiple sclerosis.
Caroline Wyatt, 49, flew to Mexico for groundbreaking therapy for her crippling neurological condition.
The illness, which affects the brain and the spinal cord, makes it hard for victims to balance, gives them double vision and even affects their ability to swallow and to think.
Miss Wyatt – who spent seven years as the BBC’s defence correspondent, risking her life as she reported from war zones – suffered from MS for decades but was misdiagnosed until 2015.
By that point, she was BBC religious affairs correspondent, but she was forced to give the post up last summer when her symptoms became too severe. Her vision was blurred in one eye and she had such difficulty walking, she sometimes fell over and found it impossible to travel.
The only glimmer of hope was the possibility that she could benefit from a ‘haematopoietic stem cell transplantation’ – a potentially life-changing treatment which is offered to some sufferers on the NHS.
The treatment was trialled in Chicago in the mid-1990s, and is now offered in London, Sheffield, Russia and Mexico. Doctors say it is the biggest breakthrough in the treatment of MS for years, helping around three quarters of those who try it.
Miss Wyatt said HSCT was her ‘best hope’ of stopping the disease in its tracks, and potentially even reversing the symptoms, as there have been ‘some remarkable stories of recovery’.
In a moving blog, she spoke of her desperation for the treatment. ‘MS may not be immediately lethal, but it does kill us and the very essence of who we are: very slowly, day by day, nerve by nerve, and cell by cell,’ she wrote.
‘There has to be a way to halt the progress of this disease, and make sure it doesn’t get any worse while I am still
‘It kills the essence of who we are’
able to work, walk, talk, laugh and love.’ Miss Wyatt underwent months of tests to see if she could receive the treatment in London or Sheffield.
But she was told in November that she was not eligible for the treatment because scans of her brain did not show any inflammation. At that point, she was crushed – and so afraid of what MS might do to her that she decided to ‘entrust [her] innards’ to Mexican doctors and pay for it herself.
She contacted a private hospital in Puebla – two hours south of Mexico City – and started treatment in January. It is costing her £62,000 including flights and follow-up drugs.
The gruelling process involves removing the harmful immune cells that attack the brain and spinal cord in MS. Doctors then use the patient’s own stem cells – harvested from their bone-marrow or blood – effectively to re-grow the immune system.
The process robbed Miss Wyatt of her hair, and left her feeling exhausted, nauseous, and as ‘vulnerable as a newborn’. She returned to London last week, and may not find out whether the treatment was effective for the best part of a year.
She is still a member of the BBC staff, and is working on a Radio 4 documentary about stem cell treatments.