Friday, May 15, 2015

Evelyn's progress report - May 2015

From time to time we catch up with Evelyn who is ill, not fit for work and trapped into the Jersey Social Security, Health and  Social Housing systems.

We try to present her situation accurately as she experiences it and several previous interviews can be found on this blog.

Because Evelyn experiences a great deal of pain she  smokes cannabis when it is available . This is the best treatment she has discovered because it relieves her symptoms and gives her an appetite but of course it is illegal.

The official policy is that she must take prescribed  morphine and other opiates but these actually add to her physical problems and do not give her the relief she needs.

Evelyn has petitioned the States of Jersey seeking permission to have cannabis prescribed by her doctors for her own personal use but this was rejected.

Sometimes she is visited by the Police and has been arrested/charged for possession of cannabis etc. on occasions.
Even her aged parents have had their car taken apart by the Customs at St Helier when returning from France - presumably looking for cannabis.

We try not to judge the situation by Evelyn clearly has enough problems to deal with arising from her poor heath  and she does receive official help BUT it just appears to be so inadequate and uncaring at times.

We offer the following interview in 3 parts of about 6 or 7 minutes each;