“I was fearing that this day would never come,”
Jorja Emerson from Co Down, Ireland was awarded the prescription by a private hospital in London on the 4th December.
The treatment was the difference between her living and dying according to her father Robin Emerson. Jorja can suffer up to 30 seizures a day and are caused by a rare chromosome deletion.
The treatment will be costing her family around £12,000 per year.
In a statement from Mr Emerson he said that obtaining a prescription was difficult.
“I was fearing that this day would never come,”
“When medical cannabis was legalised by the Home Secretary our hopes were raised.
“But we were subsequently left devastated when the NHS guidelines were put out.
“Taken together with recommendations from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the British Paediatric Neurologist Association (BPNA), these guidelines were so tight that hardly anyone would be able to secure a prescription.
“I hope this day paves the way for many other clinicians to have the confidence to prescribe.”
Jorja’s prescription is the first to be written for a child since cannabis was rescheduled on the 1st November 2018.
Sir Mike Penning MP (co-chair of the All-{arty Parliamentary Group on Prescribed Use of Medical Cannabis) said
“The political and parliamentary battle was fought and won over the summer.
“But there has been a mixture of over-caution and, in some cases, outright opposition from clinicians to prescribe.
“This has led to the frankly outrageous and cruel situation in which many families are having to consider travelling abroad to access the medical cannabis that is now legal here.”
Source – Belfast Telegraph
Image – Emerson Family
