Full story at CornwallLive, 29 September 2017
Three times a week, 74-year-old Doreen Roe has to travel to the Royal Cornwall Hospital to be hooked up to a machine that keeps her alive.
The organisation in charge of healthcare budgets in Cornwall has been accused of trying to “cull” patients like Doreen because she costs too much to transport.
For the past two years Doreen did not have to incur any cost to travel to hospital from her home in St Agnes. However now she has been told that what was once free is no longer a given. As a result she will have to fork out £180 a month on transport just to stay alive, which is over a third of her monthly pension of £519.
Doreen said “I’m looking at what I’ll have to cut down on. It can’t be bills or the council tax so it will have to be food”. She added “I don’t know how I’m going to manage but I’ll have to or I’ll die. If I don’t go my dialysis appointments I will be dead within two weeks”.