Drug shortages reveal Brexit realty for epilepsy suffferers – Yorkshire Post letters

FOR many of us Brexit has become something of a soap opera. However, suddenly it has become so very real to my wife.

About 30 years ago she was diagnosed as an epileptic and began a regime of daily medication to avoid seizures. As with many epileptic sufferers, it took some time for her doctors to refine the amount of medication she had to take.

But for about 25 years she has been free from attacks and has collected her monthly prescription from the surgery with no problems.

For the past two months, however, there has been difficulty in obtaining some of her drugs.

We learn that the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee has warned MPs that there are supply shortages due to several factors, including Brexit contingency planning.

Epilepsy is a common serious neurological condition affecting more than half a million people in the UK. The Epilepsy Society, a registered charity, says that anxiety and stress are putting patients at greater risk of seizures. Most patients must take medication every day and any interruption in supply can be potentially dangerous.

So Brexit has changed for my wife and myself from a soap opera to a personal drama, which we can only hope will be speedily resolved.

From: James Mellor, Halifax.

IN the 2016 referendum, I voted Leave. It was a protest as I wasn’t happy with austerity.

The irony is my wife is German and we had not discussed things. The next day when she was shocked that we had voted out, I realised we had made a monumental mistake.

To be fair, Remain ran a poor campaign in 2016. It did not made a strong case while Leave played on emotions. Just like Donald Trump with ‘Make America Great Again’, you will always win on an emotional argument. I have learned a lot about this in the past three years, as all the Leave lies came out thick and fast, like a rats running from a sinking ship.

I was assured that we would stay in the customs union and single market. I foolishly believed that lie, which I had heard from Nigel Farage who came up to Leeds where I heard him speak. He won the room over while the Remain argument was represented by an 18-year-old student on a stand, whose message didn’t resonate in comparison.

I now support a People’s Vote and have met my MP Craig Whittaker. I was traditionally a Conservative voter.