Appropriate ME Treatment

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I could easily say amen and sit down, but I would like to compliment the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on her speech.

I hope this debate and the passionate interest of colleagues from the across the House bring some encouragement to those suffering from this condition that they are not forgotten. Louise McAllan from Riverside got in touch with me last June. She tells me that ME led her to medically retire in her early 30s, that she has been too sick to leave her bed for months at a time, that she is unable to tolerate light or sound, that she cannot meet her friends and that she suffers intolerable pain. She was told by a neurologist in a major hospital that there was no such thing as ME, and she was told when she got a diagnosis that at least she did not have anything serious.

Catherine Schmitz from Stirling got in touch last May to tell me her story. For her, it is a dreadful illness that has left her signed off work for 22 years. She has balance and vision problems and sensitivity to light and noise. To get a diagnosis, she was passed around hospital departments that could look only at their own specialist areas.

Cathy Dickson from Torbrex got in touch in November 2017. Her case and the dangerous advice that she was given saw her become more ill because of doctors who had no knowledge of ME. She continues to fight for the support that she needs and deserves.

Pam Sullivan from Bridge of Allan also suffers from ME, which has left her with crippling fatigue, exhaustion, viral symptoms, muscle pain, and impaired cognitive function. Without her loving family, she would have no support at all.

I know the Minister is both compassionate and dedicated, so I hope that he will respond to the demands that we are hearing today in this debate. Treatments that harm patients should be discontinued with immediate effect. Does he appreciate the fact that ME patients cannot wait for NICE guidelines to be reviewed? I very much hope that he will agree that it is simply not acceptable that seriously ill people should be left feeling that, somehow, they are to blame for not getting better, and that if only they had a better attitude and a different mindset, they would recover.

What more will be done to provide updated professional training for GPs and other healthcare professionals properly to recognise the symptoms of ME? What more can the Department for Work and Pensions do to see that ME patients are treated fairly and that the process to which they are subject does not worsen their illness—especially in respect of how assessments are conducted? Will the Minister please reassure the House that substantially more resources will be dedicated to biomedical research so that we can understand ME and begin to reach for solutions? Minister, people need help.