The Countess of Mar made another intervention during the House of Lords debate yesterday (16 November 2011) on the Government's Health and Social Care Bill. The debate on the Committee Stage was in its sixth day.
She said:
My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 79 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, although he should not have moved it at this stage perhaps; he should have just spoken to it.
As the Minister knows, I am concerned about people with CFS/ME. They are the most neglected, denigrated and discriminated-against group in the country and there are some 60,000 of them who are severely ill, which means that they are homebound and bed-bound.
They have multi-system symptoms, which are far too often neglected. They have co-morbidities-one person that I know of, who has had ME since she was 15 and is now 30, has severe gynaecological problems but because she has ME they are not going look at those. Also, she gets no social care.
It is very important that these services are thoroughly integrated and that people understand that because you have ME it does not mean to say that all you need is a little bit of CBT and GET and you can get up and go. We have got to provide for people who are severely ill.
So I support the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley.
I love this woman!
well done – this is excellent!
Thank you to the Countess of Mar for fighting so hard for the severely affected.