The anorexia patients abandoned by the NHS because 'they are too sick to treat'
Charlotte Nolan, 23, has been fighting the deadly eating disorder anorexia for seven years. And in November she hit rock bottom.
The student nurse was having weekly therapy sessions, but they weren’t helping and promised additional weekly visits from a support worker failed to materialise.
Her food obsessions were spiralling out of control and her mental health was plummeting. Hopes were pinned on a meeting with her community mental health team, where it would be decided what to do next.
There were discussions about several different treatment options. But the ultimate decision they made was baffling. Instead of continuing therapy, trying another treatment or hospital admission, they simply discharged her from care. She says: ‘I was sobbing, trying to express to a room full of strangers that I wasn’t sure I could cope, I wasn’t sure I could stay safe.
Charlotte’s story is heartbreaking but, alarmingly, she is not alone.
In fact, there are a rising number of desperately ill anorexia patients being deemed too sick to treat.
Experts have voiced concerns about both NHS and private clinics withdrawing life-saving treatment.
"I’ve been contacted by people who say they are discharged because they’re too sick or not recovering fast enough, and being told there’s nothing more that can be done,’ says Hope Virgo, an eating disorder campaigner and former patient.
"It’s heartbreaking. Some have been referred to palliative care. We don’t give up on patients with physical illnesses, we find different treatment methods which work for them. And yet, with eating disorders, it’s still a case of one-size-fits-all. Why aren’t we setting people up to have a chance of recovery? Instead, if treatment doesn’t work, services are washing their hands of them."
Source: Mail Online, 29 May 2023
Read a blog Hope Virgo wrote for the hub last year: People with eating disorders should not face stigma in the health system and barriers to accessing support in 2022