Dr Lucy Shenton says specialist care is required for patients such as Maeve Boothby-O’Neill, who died aged 27
By Caroline Davies & Agency, The Guardian
Extracts
There needs to be properly funded research into people suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and specialist services for patients, a GP who treated a young woman with the condition told her inquest.
Dr Lucy Shenton said doctors needed more help to treat patients such as Maeve Boothby-O’Neill, 27, who had the condition, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, for a decade before she died at home in October 2021.
The inquest in Exeter heard that Boothby-O’Neill was admitted to the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital three times that year for treatment for malnutrition. In the last few months of her life, she was confined to bed, unable to chew food and had difficulty drinking because she was unable to sit up.
The inquest has heard that she was placed on a nasogastric tube for artificial feeding while in hospital but that it was removed following complications. An alternative – parenteral feeding through a vein – was rejected because it would have been unsafe in her case.
Regarding severe ME, there needs to be more funding and research to provide the evidence and guidelines for clinicians to work from. There needs to be somewhere within the NHS providing specialist care for patients with severe ME and an easy mechanism to access that provision.
Dr Lucy Shenton
Shenton said many of the health professionals involved in caring for Boothby-O’Neill were not doctors and their “lack of understanding” of severe ME may have been relevant.
The inquest was adjourned until 9 August, when the coroner is due to record their conclusions.
Further Media Coverage
- The Independent: GP calls for better funding of research into ME, inquest hears | 3rd August 2024
- Express & Star: GP calls for better funding of research into ME, inquest hears | 3rd August 2024