If men had this problem, they would have called in the Army by now...
ONE of the MPs who fought to change the law to make menopause drugs cheaper is about to run out of her own hormone replacement medication. Caroline Nokes has revealed she will have used up her supply by Tuesday, after being hit by the national shortage of HRT products affecting women across Britain.
The Conservative MP, 49, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, last night told The Mail on Sunday she has been desperately trying to get her hands on more medication.
Ms Nokes has been rationing her medication, which offsets menopause symptoms, and is now suffering from her symptoms flaring up again. ‘You can’t help but feel that, if this was a drug used exclusively by men, they’d have sent in the Army to beef up production by now,’ she said. Ms Nokes has been inundated with emails from women in a similar position – one had been in touch with every pharmacy in Southampton, none of which had any HRT. ‘It’s chaos,’ she said, adding that women are ‘anxious and scared’. Many of them, like her, are rationing what little they have left. ‘They are reducing the normal dosage to try to eke out the supplies they have for a bit longer,’ she added.
‘It means symptoms start creeping back in because you change the dosage. The sleepless nights, the sweats, the itching. I get these really itchy legs – I can sit there and scratch my legs until they bleed. It’s so hideous.’ Ms Nokes is backing The Mail on Sunday’s campaign to urgently fix the HRT shortage. She was first prescribed Oestrogel in December. But when she went to repeat her prescription, she was told it was no longer available and that she could only get Sandrena, another HRT medication, which was only available in onemonth supplies. When she tried to get more this month, she was told by her pharmacists that neither drug was available.
Last week Ms Nokes resorted to an online provider and paid nearly £40 for a month’s supply. But 24 hours later she received an email saying they had run out of stock ‘due to nationwide shortages’ and her order wasn’t coming.
She says her friends have been in touch offering some of their spare doses, which she has been ‘really touched’ by. ‘But that shouldn’t be how it is,’ she said.
Ms Nokes was one of the crossparty MPs who last year backed Welsh Labour MP Carolyn Harris’s campaign to lower HRT costs.
And last week Ms Nokes asked the government to ensure it works ‘hand in glove’ with pharmacies to ensure women get the supplies they need, as Leader of the House Mark Spencer encouraged women to look to alternative medicines.
Last night Ms Nokes said: ‘It shouldn’t be a question of having to make do with a sub-optimal product just because we haven’t got our act together.’ While she credits the government for trying to boost supply, she says it needs to happen at a much faster pace. ‘The Department of Health is emphasising how the company that produces Oestrogel has doubled supplies.
‘But I spoke to the nurse at my surgery, who said that in the past 12 months she’d seen a tenfold increase in demand for HRT.’
She also credits campaigns run by the likes of Davina McCall, Mariella Frostrup and Penny Lancaster for helping to break the taboo around menopause, but says this has also contributed to the spike in demand for treatment.
‘We should be talking about it, and highlighting that we are losing women in the workplace because of menopause,’ said Ms Nokes.