Meningitis

I was sad to see this story on the news last week - a toddler in Cornwall who lost his limbs through having meningitis.

His poor parents are fund raising for money to provide him with the artificial limbs he will need as he grows up.

The NHS and PCTs are constantly faced with calls on their funding, sometimes for things above and beyond might we might call "usual". It is down to the PCTs to decide how best to allocate funds in the best interests of all in their county.

Doesn't it make you think though that in this case, rather than funding some end-of-life  cancer last-gasp hope drugs for vast amounts of money (to the drug companies) money might be better spent on the young, such as little Marshall in this case.

I remember vividly a 17 year old girl I was looking after back in 2004 on the dialysis unit in Leicester.

She had had meningitis, had lost several fingers and toes, lost the use of her kidneys and several other technical complications. She went to have the wounds on her legs cleaned up by the plastic surgeons. That afternoon they rang us from theatre to explain that the deep tissues in her legs were all dead. She came back later that evening having had both legs removed above the knee.

She was devastated, as were her parents and brother. School friends too who kept visiting.

Her life went on though, and she had the prospect of kidney transplants and artificial limbs etc...

In the case of Marshall in Cornwall, imagining the trauma his parents must have gone through, shouldn't the NHS be funding his prosthetic limbs? Rather than having them going out fundraising?

This isn't a campaign on my part I have to say- just a commentary.