North mum's call for US 'miracle' op to be on NHS

CALLS have been made for miracle surgery that helped North East youngsters with cerebral palsy walk to be more readily available in the UK.

Families say more expertise and funding should be invested in the pioneering procedure called selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) in this country so children dont have to travel to America, where the surgery has been carried out with a high success rate for many years.

The complex operation, which involves electrically stimulating muscles to the spine, is only available in a handful of NHS hospitals, meaning that scores of young cerebral palsy sufferers who want to be in with a chance of walking have to look further afield.

This has seen a string of families from across the region kick-start their own campaigns to raise money to travel to the States for the procedure.

Sharon Brown, mum of seven-year-old Callum, who has diplegic cerebral palsy, has worked tirelessly to raise 50,000 towards getting her little boy to St Louis Childrens Hospital in Missouri for the procedure, which she hopes will take place early next year.

But Sharon, from Seaton Sluice, Northumberland, says life would have been a lot easier if the same level of expertise were on offer at hospitals in the UK.

I feel the NHS are very negative about SDR and I only heard about it through the grapevine, she said. In this country they are very, very selective about who they take because it is still early days and they dont do it very often.

Thats why I chose to go to America because I wanted to make sure Callum got the best treatment possible.

Maybe 20 years down the line we might be at the same stage here as they are in America now.

Guidelines issued last year by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence advised that the NHS could consider the operation for people with cerebral palsy and stated that decisions on funding were to be made locally.

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North mum's call for US 'miracle' op to be on NHS