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Anguish over loss of clinic
A PATIENT of Scarbor-ough Hospital's pain clinic fears he will be left housebound and popping pills when the service ends next month.
Henry Rowlands, of Green Croft Gardens, Cay-ton, suffers with arthritis of the spine and both knees and has been using the pain clinic for the past 15 years.
Regular acupuncture sessions and nerve operations have brought his pain under control, but he fears he will be back to square one.
The pain clinic is to cease at the end of August and its services transferred to GP practices.
Mr Rowlands said: "It got to the stage where I was able to return to work and I have been working at the Citizens Advice Bureau for the past seven months. But if I don't have continued treatment I will be back to the stage I was 10 years ago, sitting at home pushing pills down my throat.
"For the many hundreds of long-term patients who attend the pain clinic this sudden loss of such a specialist bespoke service at the hands of trusted and extremely competent medical staff will come as a shock."
Mr Rowlands, 59, spent 25 years in the army before retiring in 1988. Two years later he started having problems.
Following treatment, including physiotherapy, he was referred to the pain clinic where he received pain-block injections into his spine, which are similar to an epidural, and operations on his nerve endings. He also had regular acupuncture sessions at the clinic which kept his pain under control.
But he will now be referred back to his GP who will either send him to another acupuncturist or he will have to have his medication increased if he cannot find relief through alternative means.
The local Pain Clinic Support Group has set up a new committee to challenge the decision, which is expected to affect hundreds of patients, and has contacted the British Pain Society for support.
The local primary care trust, which funds the clinic, says the closure is for financial reasons and it is looking at alternative ways of treating patients outside the hospital.
Mr Rowlands said: "I say they should be holding Scarborough Hospital pain clinic up as the standard other health trusts should be striving to attain, and not denigrating and decimating this superb service."
A spokesman for the PCT said: "In a number of specialities we have a higher number of follow-up outpatient appointments than the national average, which can mean more hospital visits and longer treatments compared to other areas.
"By working together and continuing to develop community-based services closer to patients' homes as an alternative to hospital admissions, we hope we can reduce the number of hospital follow-up appointments in certain specialities.
"We are hoping that some of the follow-up clinics will be delivered in localities to again support patients closer to home."
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Weather for Scarborough
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -3 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South
