A YORK sufferer of ME has told why specialist health services based in Leeds can end up doing more harm than good for patients like her.

Christina Cook, 38, from Wigginton, was speaking out after The Press reported last week how two other patients with the same debilitating condition claimed to have been left “high and dry” after a York course which helped them manage their condition was scrapped.

Health chiefs said such services were commissioned from a specialist regional service based in Leeds, a recognised centre of excellence.

Christina said she accepted Leeds was a centre of excellence for ME, but said: “That is not really relevant when you consider the obstacles of getting there, and being able to gain any meaningful benefit from the facilities. Placing these obstacles makes me feel patients are effectively being denied appropriate treatment.”

Explaining what ME can be like, she said: “Imagine you are suffering from the worst ’flu you have ever had coupled with the worst hangover. Times that by 20. “Now imagine showering, drying your hair, climbing stairs. Could you contemplate a drive to Leeds even if a car were to chauffeur you door to door? You feel like the car actually hit you rather than carried you. You feel every bump of the road and steer of the wheel. “You can’t take in what is said to you while you are in Leeds through your worsening head fog. But that is not the worst of it. With ME, the exertion is really felt afterwards – often the next day. Imagine your symptoms deteriorate by several hundred percent. You’re bedbound, and struggle to hold your fork. It takes a week to recover to the condition you were before the trip. That is for the lucky patients who are able to even attempt the trip.”

She believed an enhanced version of the scrapped course should be commissioned in York with a multi-disciplinary team.

Melanie Bradbury, assistant director for Vulnerable People and NHS Funded Continuing Health Care at NHS North Yorkshire and York, said: “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a very complex condition to diagnose and treat. That is why we only access the specialist regional centre in Leeds which is approved by the Department of Health.

“Leeds is a recognised centre of excellence for patients with this condition and is staffed by a fully qualified multi-disciplinary team who provide outpatient and inpatient treatment.”