Sick woman, 22, in plea to NHS for surgery after her weight falls by half

A WOMAN bravely battling an illness which has left her housebound and seen her lose nearly half her body weight has issued a desperate plea to health chiefs to fund life-changing surgery.

Rudi Hargraves was a healthy size 12 when she became ill last year with a condition which left her unable to digest food.

Her condition deteriorated, triggering her collapse just days after she started her first job on graduating from university.

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She spent most of the next six months in hospital as worried doctors tried to build her weight and in February was diagnosed with a condition which can be treated by an operation to fit a gastric pacemaker in her stomach.

But she faced further devastation after NHS chiefs in Hull failed to approve an application for the surgery which costs £14,000.

Last night she said: “It would give me such a better quality of life. I’m only 22 and I desperately want to start living my life.

“It’s been dreadful. I’ve just become weaker, I’m housebound and rely on people to take me anywhere and it would make such a big difference.”

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Miss Hargraves’s problems began in January last year when she began suffering stomach pains and nausea, struggling to keep food down. The symptoms got “worse and worse” and her weight plunged from more than 10 stones to less than six.

Her GP referred her to hospital but last September she collapsed before the appointment and was rushed to hospital from the school where she had begun work as a teaching assistant.

She was so underweight she spent two months in Hull Royal Infirmary and was fitted with a feeding tube directly into her stomach.

Miss Hargraves returned to the family home in Sutton, near Hull, before Christmas, only to be re-admitted in February after she deteriorated again when she was finally diagnosed with a severe case of gastroparesis, which has left her stomach partially paralysed and unable to digest food properly.

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Now she relies on special liquid dietary supplements and is so weak she cannot even go to hospital appointments, talking to her specialist on the phone each week, and getting about at home with the aid of a stick or a wheelchair to go anywhere else.

She had been “overjoyed” to find out the operation could rectify her condition and tests had shown she was suitable for the procedure – but last month NHS Hull had refused to approve it.

“I just think it’s horrible – it doesn’t seem fair,” she said.

Her mother Lynn said the family were pinning their hopes on NHS officials giving her the “life-changing” operation she desperately needed.

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“Rudi has gone from a happy, healthy 22-year-old, size 12 to an extremely weak and poorly girl weighing just under six stones,” she said.

“It is so unfair that my daughter is desperately ill. She has worked and paid her taxes since beginning work at 18, yet when she needs the NHS to help her those taxes are not paying for the operation to give her some quality of life back. Yet if she was an alcoholic or drug dependent she would constantly receive treatment.

“How my daughter even gets out of bed in the morning is unbelievable but she does, and she’s so brave despite all her pain and discomfort, yet there’s so little support and financial assistance for genuine people in real and desperate need.”

A spokeswoman for NHS Hull denied Miss Hargraves had been refused treatment and said the primary care trust (PCT) needed further information about her condition before the request for gastric electric neuromodulation could be considered by its exceptional treatments panel alongside national evidence of its cost and clinical effectiveness.

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“To date, the application in question has not been agreed as, crucially, insufficient supporting information has been provided to allow due consideration to take place,” she said.

“The patient’s clinician has been invited to provide the necessary clarification, receipt of which should enable the patient’s case to be progressed within the PCT.”

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