Woman Starving to Death from Severe M.E. & NHS Neglect

Former NHS Employee Starving to Death in NHS hospital

It shouldn’t be possible to die of starvation in an NHS hospital, but that is exactly what will happen without immediate intervention for a local Warfield woman who is at this moment fighting for her life at a local NHS hospital. Multiple failures by the NHS have brought her to this point. 

Sami Berry, 43, is no stranger to illness or hospitals. Her initial experience came working for the NHS, and then as a patient living with multiple debilitating illnesses including epilepsy, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), and severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). 

Sami is very concerned she is going into intestinal failure as severe ME and EDS has made her body unable to digest nutrients even through a feeding tube. NHS doctors are refusing to provide her with drugs that previously helped her regain nutritional levels, or refer her to a specialist. She is vomiting repeatedly, and cannot even keep 4 ml down. It has been 26 days without food. Her blood sugar levels are dangerously low. Sami and her family are requesting that the hospital transfer her care to specialists who understand how to treat severe ME and EDS.

Sami, her family and the ME community are terrified that Sami will join those who have died from severe ME under the negligence of the NHS.

• In 2021, Maeve Boothby O’Neill died from severe ME at the age of 27 after the NHS essentially let her starve to death. She was denied a feeding tube, and later denied total parenteral nutrition, which likely would have saved her life. An inquest into Maeve’s situation is expected to be held later this year. Maeve’s father wrote about his daughter’s tragic story for The Times.

• In 2018, Merryn Crofts died at the age of 20 after she starved to death due to severe ME.

• In 2003, 32-year-old Sophia Mirza died from severe ME after having been forcibly removed from her home and sectioned to a psychiatric ward, while the NHS failed to treat her underlying conditions that led to her death.

“Healthcare professionals seem to fail to recognize that the inability to eat and drink is a direct consequence of the severity of the ME, instead preferring to postulate psychological theories,” explain the authors of an academic paper describing 5 cases of the NHS denying patients with severe ME treatment in the UK.

Fighting for Care for Sami 

“I am slowly watching my wife die in front of my eyes,” said Craig Berry, Sami’s husband. “The doctors at the hospital are refusing to provide her with drugs that previously helped her regain nutritional levels. Her epilepsy has returned after three years. Her consultant has said that he will not necessarily take the advice of the specialists, again with no explanation. The PALS, dietary, nursing team and general surgeons have all voiced confusion about what the doctors are doing. I’m terrified I’m going to lose my wife because the doctors refuse to treat her inability to absorb nutrients.”