Virus sufferer is forced to wait three years for treatment

January 2, 2004

THE INDEPENDENT - UK

By nce Health Editor

01 January 2004

In the three years since Binge was diagnosed with hepatitis C, she

has seen a doctor once, a nurse twice and had an ultrasound test but she is

still waiting for treatment.

The 57-year-old former hotelier has been married for 30 years, never dabbled

in drugs, and suspects she became infected through a blood transfusion in

the early 1980s. She is angry at the lack of urgency shown by the NHS to

people in her predicament.

" It is very distressing because I feel I have a death sentence hanging over

me, " she says. " Although there are drugs that can treat hepatitis C I am

denied them. You can have cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver failure and no

one is doing anything. "

After being diagnosed in 2000, Mrs Binge moved from Bath to Sussex where she

was referred to a liver specialist only after " constant pestering " .

Her appointment has been cancelled twice and she has not yet seen him. A

week before Christmas she received a letter telling her that the kind of

hepatitis C she had - genotype 1B - was one of the hardest to treat. " To say

I am upset is to put it mildly, " she says. " I was going to call my MP. The

Government is burying its head in the sand. A lot of people don't know they

have got it and because no one makes a fuss no one is doing anything. It's a

shocking neglect of the nation's health.This is a very nasty illness. "

Mrs Binge, who serves as a councillor on Mid-Sussex District Council and

once stood as a Tory parliamentary candidate, has been told that after

treatment starts with a cocktail of drugs she will need an injection once a

week and pills each day for a year. The cost of the drugs is about £7,000.

" What are they waiting for? " she asks. " Perhaps if I die they can save money

and won't have to treat me. "

Although her marital status was known to the NHS, she had never been given

any advice about how to prevent her husband, Rod, 59, a financial adviser,

becoming infected.

" We never had any advice about protective sex even though the virus can be

passed on that way, " she adds. " I am anxious now to do anything I can to get

this issue more widely known. "

More information on hepatitis C can be found at

January 2, 2004