Address withheld

19^th June 2000.

Dear Gillian and Margaret,

I have known Anne for 10 years or so . Her youngest daughter and my daughter started school together. My daughter, who was only 4 at the time, had trouble settling into school. Anne was a great help in getting her daughter to comfort her before, during and after school, consequently they became best friends. I have mentioned this because it demonstrates the type of lady Anne is; very quick to pick up on a situation and always ready to help. We became good friends through the help she gave both my daughter and me.

I feel incredibly sorry that now Anne is in desperate need of help and there is nobody prepared to help her. I feel that she has been badly let down by the medical profession – not one of them seemed prepared to assess her independently by listening to what she had to say about the way she was feeling. Instead, they listened to her previous consultants and doctors ,or read her notes. Can you imagine the frustration she must have felt?

I know that Anne was an excellent nurse who was extremely caring and patient. People that I’ve met who have worked at the Hospital have always spoken highly of her and her professionalism

To me, Anne and her husband epitomised the ideal family. They were extremely happy. I often wondered how Anne managed to keep her home and the girls so perfect despite working – I always found it a struggle myself. She was a very organised woman who kept her home and herself beautiful.

I visited Anne the other day and I was shocked and very upset to see this once outgoing smart lady slumped on a chair. Her face was barely recognisable. The last time I had seen her, prior to this, was about 6 months ago. She was very pale and thin and in a great deal of pain. I felt very sad then that the medical profession had failed to help her.

I have spoken to her many times on the phone and she always requested that I do not go and see her as she knows that I am very busy—yet again she was thinking of my needs rather than her own.

She also said that she had put on weight but nothing could’ve prepared me for the major transformation in her body that I saw. Her whole body was bloated out, like a swelling. It is a shame that the medical profession do not show the same expression as I did when I saw her.

This is why I have decided to write to you. Something needs to be done urgently about Anne’s case. I don’t know how she has managed to stay sane. The attack on this once stable family is devastating – the girls feel like they have lost their mother, and they have to watch her suffer.

I do not have the answer, but I do know that Anne should never have been discharged from hospital until they had given her a proper diagnosis. She has been left to get on with it, and was told to "live with it". If only they knew what unmeasurable suffering this has brought the family to hear this, as though there is no hope.

Please, please, if there is anything you can do for this family to relieve them from this torture and to have some normality back in their lives, I, and they, would be very grateful.

Yours sincerely,

"Anne’s friend" (Name withheld)

Photographs of Anne indicating evidence of Tuberculosis

"Tuberculosis peritoneal should be considered in any patient with ascites (abominal fluid) and chronic abdominal pain ... an abdominal swelling is the most common symptom..."

(quotation from medical texts)