Nine-year-old Teagan Appleby was born with a chromosomal disorder called Isodicentric 15, and Lennox Gastaut Syndrome which can cause her to have up to 300 seizures a day.
After Teagan’s mother, Emma had been unsuccessful in getting a medical cannabis prescription in the UK, the family was recently able to raise enough money through crowdfunding to fly to Holland and obtain a three-month supply of cannabis oil from a pharmacy in The Hague.
But after the family arrived back in the UK at London Southend Airport on Saturday, April 6, officials confiscated all of Teagan’s cannabis oil.
On Monday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that the medicine had not been destroyed and there would be a chance for a second opinion.
On Wednesday, Mrs. Appleby posted a video to Facebook announcing that the family had managed to secure a private prescription for Teagan.
“The fight doesn’t end here,” said Mrs. Appleby, noting that an NHS prescription was still needed. “It’s going to be costing about two-thousand-pound-a-month to continue the medication.”
But she says that there are more children that she has been fighting for in addition to her daughter that need prescriptions for cannabis oil as well.
“And also there’s 16 children that I’ve been fighting for, and this is only one,” said Mrs. Appleby. “You know, we still need to get the other 15 children their medication as well. It’s not fair that because I’ve made a big fuss and been the media, they give me the medication. That’s not what I did this for.”
Mrs. Appleby said that the next step is to work with the government to have Teagan’s supply of cannabis oil returned.
She said that the news was really positive and that they were keeping their fingers crossed that the medication would be returned as soon as possible.
