"without drug I'll go blind"

From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 21:36:30 -0400

This is Staffordshire (UK)
Saturday, October 06, 2007

By GRAEME BROWN AND IAIN ROBINSON

09:40 - 06 October 2007

Pensioner Ruth Barcroft is living in constant fear of losing her sight after
being refused funding for a groundbreaking treatment.The 70-year-old, of Barks
Drive, Norton, has already gone blind in one eye and now faces losing her sight
completely because she suffers from macular degeneration.

A £20,000-a-year drug called Lucentis has been proven to halt the effects of
the condition but Stoke-on-Trent Primary Care Trust (PCT) declined her bid for
it, saying the case was not exceptional.

Now, Ruth worries every morning she will wake up and not be able to see after
suffering from distorted vision in her right eye since April.

She said: "I could lose my eyesight at any time. It could be gone before
Christmas, it just doesn't bear thinking about."

Ruth, who lives with partner Roy Sambrooks, was first diagnosed three years ago
with macular degeneration, which distorts vision by damaging cells in the
retina.

She now has only 70 per cent vision in her right eye and can see nothing from
her left eye. The treatment would require 12 injections over 12 months, costing
about £20,000.

Tim Gillow, consultant ophthalmic surgeon based at the eye clinic at University
Hospital of North Staffordshire, wrote to Stoke-on-Trent PCT in July urging
them to fund the treatment for her.

He said: "She has got one eye which has already been affected so badly that she
can't even see the vision chart. The likelihood is she is going to get the same
problem with the other eye." Mother-of-two Ruth, who used to work in the
pottery industry, was tested at the Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary in May, where
surgeons said her only chance was Lucentis.

The drug, which has been given European Union approval, is thought to maintain
baseline vision in about 70 per cent of patients and improve the eyesight of 30
per cent.

The case went before the PCT exceptional case panel on September 25, but a
letter to her surgeon on October 1 said her case was not deemed exceptional.

She is now planning to appeal the ruling, but is yet to receive confirmation
from the PCT.

Ruth's daughter Linda Anderton, of Millgreen Avenue, Sneyd Green, said: "If
they are saying she is not an exceptional case then what is? Both of her eyes
are effected, so I can't see how you can get more exceptional?"

A spokesman for Stoke-on-Trent PCT said: "The PCT commissions photo-dynamic
therapy for age-related macular degeneration and considers any requests for
other treatments on an individual patient basis.

"These requests are considered as part of the PCT's exceptional case policy.
The PCT does not comment on individual cases."

An RNIB spokesman said: "In a minimum of 70 per cent of cases like this,
Lucentis can stabilise sight and in 30 per cent of cases, the drug can improve
sight. There is no argument, it is effective."

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"without drug I'll go blind"

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