Mike will get vital op - after a two-year battle
A man has finally won a two-and-a-half year battle to get funding for an operation.
Mike Crawford, 42, suffers from a severe hiatus hernia - where part of the stomach slides through the diaphragm into the chest.
He says it causes him constant heartburn and he has to fight to not be sick.
But for almost three years, local health bosses have refused him funding for a laparoscopic fundoplication procedure.
This is despite going against the advice of Mr Crawford's doctor and surgeon who described it as 'vital and necessary'.
But the Portsmouth City Teaching Primary Care Trust has now changed its mind and agreed to pay for the operation after a health ombudsman stepped in.
Mr Crawford of Tunstall Road, Wymering, Portsmouth, said: 'I'm so annoyed. It's taken almost three years of fighting. Why didn't they agree funding in the first place?
'They're saying now they've got new evidence from my GP about my case but nothing's changed since this all started. It was clearly money saving.
'I knew I should be entitled to this operation so didn't give up - but what happens to those who just take the PCT's word for it? They could be living in agony.'
Mr Crawford has suffered from a hiatus hernia in the past and had an operation in 1999 and a further one in 2000.
His symptoms then went away but returned in June 2007.
He said: 'I have horrendous heartburn all the time and am constantly trying to stop my stomach contents coming up.
'At night it either keeps me awake or I'll wake up and my throat will be full and I'll be struggling to breathe. I have no quality of life.
'My surgeon said the previous surgery had basically come undone, so it's corrective surgery I need.
'It's a bodily failure I have - pills can't fix it. The surgeon knows that.
'The people who make decisions at the PCT aren't specialists.'
The PCT refused funding because the operation was not one it funded.
It also said Mr Crawford was not an exceptional case.
Now since being contacted by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the PCT has changed its mind and Mr Crawford is awaiting confirmation of funding.
A spokesman for the PCT said: 'NHS Portsmouth can confirm that there has been a further review of Mr Crawford's case in the light of new information supplied by his GP.'
But the PCT would not specify what this new information is.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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