Health boards across Scotland are avoiding giving a sight-saving drug to elderly people, saying they do not have the staff and facilities to administer the treatment, it was claimed yesterday.
Health boards across Scotland are avoiding giving a sight-saving drug to elderly people, saying they do not have the staff and facilities to administer the treatment, it was claimed yesterday.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind in Scotland has been pressing health authorities for details about their approach to the disease, wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), since The Herald highlighted the case of a retired Greenock nurse denied an approved drug by Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board last October.
The drug, Macugen, has been approved for use since last year, but many health authorities initially claimed they could not afford to supply it.
After the case of Maria Gurney - who is facing impending blindness unless she receives treatment - the RNIB wrote to all boards in Scotland asking what their policy was.
A clear pattern has emerged: boards say the drug can, in theory, be prescribed, but it requires trained staff and sterile accommodation in which to carry out the necessary injections.
The issue has been thrown into sharper relief by a campaign in England, launched yesterday by former Labour MP Alice Mahon. At 69, she is one of an estimated 27,000 people in Britain who face blindness because of AMD.
The former Labour stalwart went private to save her sight at an initial cost of £5500 for the injections, but has now decided to campaign on behalf of those who cannot make such a choice.
John Legg, director of RNIB Scotland, said: "It is difficult to imagine the traumatic effect of being told that you may go blind when you know that an effective treatment to save your sight is available but is not being resourced. Any money saved' by such economies is eclipsed by the long-term costs to society of someone losing their sight.
"Macugen is the first of a new generation of drugs for the treatment of the wet version of age-related macular degeneration. These drugs have the potential to stabilise the patient's condition and, in the case of some drugs, to improve it.
"Health boards are aware that more of these treatments will shortly be available through the NHS. We are calling on all NHS boards to have appropriate funding, facilities and trained staff in place in good time to ensure the safe, equitable and prompt delivery of treatment to all."
Mrs Gurney is a retired nurse who found the NHS wanting when she began to lose her sight. Her daughter, Anne Boyle, is furious about the plight of her mother, who looks after her father as he struggles with dementia.
She has battled since October to get the treatment which could arrest the deterioration in her mother's sight. Two weeks ago, Mrs Gurney was given a stronger prescription for her glasses, but soon her sight will deteriorate to the point where treatment will be too late to help her.
"I think it is appalling the way my mother has been treated," she said. "Sooner rather than later she will be beyond getting any treatment."
Duncan McNeill, the Labour MSP who has been fighting on behalf of his constituent, said: "This is absolutely a case where time is of the essence. It would be the supreme irony if we won the argument, only for this to come too late to save Mrs Gurney's sight."
