Thyroid Association of New Zealand

Better Endocrinological Service and Treatment for thyroid/autoimmune patients (B.E.S.T.)

Campaign created by Diane Bamford

May 2013

To sign this petition go to:
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/better-endicrinological-service-and-treatment-for-thyroid-patients-b-e-s-t

38degrees Campaigns by You logo

To: Jeremy Hunt (Secretary of State for Health)

We are calling on you to improve diagnosis and treatment for UK thyroid, adrenal and related autoimmune disorders.

Too many are needlessly enduring severe health effects because of poor GP and endocrinological diagnosis, service and treatment. We are suffering, desperate and sometimes suicidal because this needless situation continues.

Please help the tens of thousands of thyroid sufferers in the UK, and the many more who remain undiagnosed and untreated, by holding a full review into endocrinological services.

Why is this important?

I am one of the B.E.S.T. petition team. For years, I suffered severe anxiety, poor health and suffered infertility as a result of doctors not diagnosing me with Graves disease. Even after my condition was recognised, I received appalling treatment. I was given unnecessary Radioactive Iodine treatment, which resulted in a range of unpleasant side effects. It took me five years to find an informed GP and Endocrinologist to provide me with the T3 hormone treatment, which now means I can live a normal life in mostly stable health. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Huge numbers of people are being left to suffer severe, debilitating symptoms because thyroid and related autoimmune and adrenal dysfunctions are not being diagnosed or treated. Not enough of our GPs and endocrinologists are versed in these issues.

Tens of thousands of sufferers are being prescribed anti-depressants and other unnecessary drugs. Many are left unable to work and are forced to exist on state benefits. Medical practitioners are not being correctly trained to deal with these disorders which are affecting a huge number of people and costing the state millions as a result of misdiagnosis and incorrect treatments.

There are hundreds of websites and support groups throughout the world dedicated to these conditions, with sufferers pouring out their stories of how long it has taken to be diagnosed, or receive the correct diagnosis, or receive the correct treatment: tpauk.com and thyroiduk.org are UK based. A worldwide organisation is thyroidchange.org
Despite the thousands of daily posts and cries for help on these sites, endocrinology seems to neither listen, nor act.

The specific reasons for the petition and particulars of the review we require are here http://tinyurl.com/knh5dpp

Ultimately, we are calling for the education and training of medical practitioners to be urgently improved so that diagnosis and treatment of these conditions is effective. A timely and radical review would be welcomed by an increasingly knowledgeable and empowered public, as well as by those doctors currently struggling to provide what they know to be the most appropriate treatment for their patients.

WE NEED OUR HEALTH BACK.