16-year-old schoolgirl denied life-saving cancer treatment because doctors say she is ‘too old’
A 16-year-old girl battling cancer was forced to raise money for her treatment herself after being told she was too young and too old to qualify for the NHS.
Faith Shone suffers from leukemia, caused by the heavy chemotherapy she received two years ago to treat a tumor in her leg.
Doctors say heavier doses of chemotherapy could cause heart failure, meaning her only options are stem cell and CAR-T therapies as part of a trial.
But 16 and 17 year olds are not eligible for medical examinations to treat diseases, because they are considered neither adults nor children.
Faith Shone, 16, is raising money for her own cancer treatment after being told she is too old and too young to qualify for NHS trials
If Faith was under 16 or over 18 she would be able to undergo the treatment, but instead her family now have to raise £70,000 to pay for the treatment privately.
Faith’s father Tim, 43, said: ‘It’s a race against time and in many ways very unfair.
“If Faith were younger, or 18 or older, we would immediately offer her a free trial.
‘But because 16 and 17 year olds don’t have that, we have to deal with a fundraising emergency first.
‘And if doctors hadn’t ignored her symptoms for months, she would have been eligible and would have been diagnosed earlier.
“This blind spot is ridiculous and it must affect many teenagers, given the number of children diagnosed with cancer today.”
Faith, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, was 13 when she discovered a lump on her leg. Tests revealed it was a rare sarcoma that required intensive chemotherapy.
She also underwent radiation therapy and surgery to remove the tumor, meaning she was now cancer-free.
But when the schoolgirl woke up, she felt exhausted and dizzy, and she bruised more easily than usual.
Faith, pictured with sisters Isla, 10 (left), and Skye, 13 (right). Faith was diagnosed with leukaemia, caused by intensive chemotherapy she received when she was 13.
Her family was told by doctors not to worry and she was eventually given folic acid tablets as her vitamin B9 levels were low.
A bone marrow sample was placed in her spine and in April of this year she was diagnosed with leukemia, a condition caused by the intensive chemotherapy she had undergone at the age of 13.
Tim says if doctors had listened to the family’s concerns first, she could have received medical treatment, given that she was only 15.
He said: ‘We had been asking the consultant for months because something wasn’t right. She was bleeding and bruised.
“They didn’t believe these were the symptoms, so they didn’t do any further testing.”
Doctors have suggested intensive chemotherapy, but the chances of it working are only 10 percent. There is an 80 percent chance that it will worsen her condition.
Faith, who will study fine arts at university in September, is also being offered palliative care, but the family is still raising money for the stem cell therapy.
Tim said, “We were there last Friday.
‘A specialist from London said they didn’t want to give Faith any more chemo because of the damage it would do to her immune system.
‘The only thing they could do now was provide palliative care.
Her family are now hoping to raise £70,000 so Faith can receive the treatment privately
‘I asked Faith what she wanted to do and she said she didn’t want to do any more chemotherapy, that she wasn’t going to end up in bed and die.
It’s better to have fun when she doesn’t have much time left.
‘But we still have the option of using stem cell therapy, and that’s where raising money comes in.
“It is still incredibly frustrating that all of this could have been identified and addressed months ago, when Faith was only 15.”
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