Access to medical cannabis for U.K. patients under threat due to Brexit Thursday, 07 January 2021
More than 40 children in the U.K. with severe forms of epilepsy are at risk of losing access to their medicine due to Brexit restrictions, reports The Times.
As of Jan. 1, British prescriptions are no longer recognized in the European Union. With many families travelling to the Netherlands to get their cannabis prescriptions filled and Dutch law requiring a valid prescription to export cannabis products they are now left scrambling to find alternatives
Hannah Deacon, the mother of Alfie Dingley, the first patient in the U.K. to receive a permanent medical cannabis licence, told The Guardian that her son’s life is at risk.
The mother of a nine-year-old boy with a rare form of epilepsy has warned her son’s life is at risk because his medical cannabis can no longer be imported from the Netherlands due to Brexit.
Hannah Deacon said she had only learned of the change in policy less than two weeks before the Brexit transition period came to an end at the end of 2020.
She said she now has just six weeks’ supply left of the Bedrolite oil on which her son, Alfie Dingley, depends to keep him free of seizures.
However when she appealed to the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) for help, she said they showed a “complete lack of understanding” of his condition.
The mother of a nine-year-old boy with a rare form of epilepsy has warned her son s life is at risk because his medical cannabis can no longer be imported from the Netherlands due to Brexit.
Hannah Deacon said she had only learned of the change in policy less than two weeks before the Brexit transition period came to an end on December 31.
She added she now has just six weeks supply of the Bedrolite oil which her son, Alfie Dingley, depends on to keep him free of seizures.
Ms Deacon claimed that when she appealed to the Department for Health and Social Care for help, they showed a complete lack of understanding of his condition.
BBC News
Published
image copyrightHannah Deacon
image captionAlfie Dingley, pictured with his mother, has now been free of seizures for eight months, she said
The mum of a boy with epilepsy says his life is at risk after being told the supply of a cannabis medicine from the Netherlands will stop due to Brexit.
The UK government told Hannah Deacon prescriptions issued in the UK can no longer be lawfully dispensed in an EU member state.
She said nine-year-old Alfie Dingley, from Warwickshire, would be in danger if he had a different product.
The government said there was a range of alternative medicines.