We are excited to announce that Melanie Sykes has joined Medcan Support as Ambassador, her support will help us to raise the issues which are preventing access to medical cannabis within the UK.
Despite the law change in 2018, only three NHS prescriptions for whole plant medical cannabis products exist, access is only available via the private sector at large costs per month. This leaves vulnerable families struggling to raise funds to pay for private prescriptions and have that extra responsibility added to an already stressful situation. Those unable to afford prescriptions are left with no choice
but to turn to the unregulated illegal market and risk the inherent dangers of this choice.
With the added burden of funding private prescriptions, we aim to support families financially with grants for mental health support, respite, holidays and specialist equipment. The impact of learning your child has a very severe illness, one that has no cure and many suffering severe disabilities and developmental delay, knowing life will be completely different to what you imagined, can cause severe anxiety, depression, PTSD, and these symptoms can be very common among parents.
Today we are also launching our fundraiser, we need your support to help families and bring some much needed relief by donating below ;
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/medcansupport
We look forward to working with Melanie and raising this issue with more information to follow soon…..
“I’m hugely proud to announce that I will be supporting MedCan Support as their ambassador.
I have been moved by stories of parents who face constant fear and worry from caring for
a child with severe treatment resistant epilepsy and for me this is unimaginable, the
welfare of the whole family unit is paramount, the child’s needs, the parents mental
health, as well as brothers and sisters who are greatly affected by having a sibling with
epilepsy.I was made aware of the struggle these families are facing in accessing medical cannabis
on prescription, this medicine has shown to reduce seizures and improve wellbeing for the
whole family. Sadly, families are left paying large sums of money via the private sector to
access this life changing medicine. This causes further worry and anxiety to an already
stressful environment. Adults too are suffering from a range of morbidities and
comorbidities and they have seen tremendous benefit from using medical cannabis,
but at large costs. The law was changed in November 2018 to allow medical cannabis
to be prescribed, yet only three NHS prescriptions for whole plant cannabis exist on the NHS, this simply isn’t good enough and change needs to come about sooner to enable access for all.I support the work of the individual members of MedCan Support who are campaigning on access to this medicine, and I hope to help bring awareness about these issues. I hope to be able to use my voice to help raise funds to support families further with respite, holidays, specialist equipment and providing parents with mental health care if needed.”
Melanie Sykes.
