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Scotland is MS 'capital of world'
Telegraph - ISSUE [2159]
Monday [23 April]2001
[Scotland is MS 'capital of world']
[By Tara Womersley]
SUPPORT for multiple sclerosis sufferers was woefully inadequate, J K Rowling, the Harry Potter authoress, said yesterday.
Ms Rowling, whose mother died from the disease, will perform her first public engagement as patron of the MS Society Scotland this week when she opens a resource centre in Aberdeen. Descring Scotland as the MS capital of the world, she said there were 10,400 sufferers in the country.
It was estimated that the disease affected one in every 500 people in Scotland compared to one in every 800 south of the border. She writes in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper: "While research into MS is proceeding in a number of academic and medical centres, most of this is funded by the MS Society. None of the research is funded by the Scottish Parliament."
Attacking a failure to assess patients' needs, Ms Rowling said there were only eight specialist MS nurses in Scotland. MS and "the total inadequacy of public services" blighted the lives of 30,000 people in Scotland and touched the lives of tens of thousands more." She wants the drug beta interferon, which can slow the progression of the disease, to be made widely available on the NHS.