TRIAD — A local state senator wants to address what he sees as a gap in transportation safety that could put people in wheelchairs and others in a motor vehicle at risk in an accident.

Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson, recently introduced Senate Bill 57 in the N.C. General Assembly. The legislation calls for a study of individuals using wheelchairs being transported in vans, buses and other vehicles.

“There haven’t been a lot of studies done about this,” he said. “We want to get some engineers and other people involved who will give us some specifics.”

Bingham envisions the study focusing on vans and buses, though it could include passenger cars as well.

“Anything that would relate to the safety of the transportation of someone in a wheelchair,”he said. “Especially where you have a long space where a wheelchair could travel if someone was in a head-on collision.”

Another issueis what should be done to secure wheelchairs in vehicles if people using them are placed in car seats, Bingham said.

He worries that a wheelchair that isn’t stored properly could turn into a dangerous projectile in an accident.

A spokesman for the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety in Raleigh

TAG: disability, disabled, Wheel chair wheelchairs, wheelchair, wheelchair safety

He is a former World War II bomber pilot who daily put his life on the line for his country. But yesterday it emerged that Patrick Reyre is being denied a new drug on the NHS which could save his sight.

During the war Mr Reyre, from Taunton, needed crystal clear vision as a bomber pilot, but now, at the age of 85, his sight is failing because of an eye condition which can be treated by a new drug.

Macugen has already been used very successfully in America and Scotland, but Mr Reyre has been told although it is the treatment he needs, it is not available where he lives in Somerset.

The former RAF test pilot will have to pay privately, which will cost him £4,000.

Yesterday Mr Reyre, who is registered as disabled because of his failing sight, and lives on £155 per week pension and benefits, said: “I feel very disillusioned. You are hailed as a hero one day and then you have to endure the misery of losing your sight. It is a bitter pill.”

The condition, wet age-related macular degeneration - of which 27,000 new cases are reported each year - has left Mr Reyre unable to cook meals or watch television.

A specialist at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, told him that Macugen would be the appropriate treatment for his condition but was not “readily available on the health service”.

Mr Reyre decided to fund his own treatment. The drug has to be injected into the eye and Mr Reyre will have the first of a possible 10 injections at the Nuffield Hospital, Taunton, on Saturday. Each one costs £400.

Mr Reyre, who lives at home with his 19-year-old son Anthony, said he had not been told that he could appeal to Somerset Primary Care Trust and he needed to act quickly to obtain the drug because his condition deteriorates quickly. “I saw two specialists and they were both wonderful. I cannot fault them. One explained that the drug was pioneered in the States and has had great success,” said.

“It is used in Scotland and Ireland, but I was later told in a letter that although it was the appropriate treatment for me, it is not readily available on the National Health Service.”

Mark Formosa, Conservative spokesman for Taunton Deane, who has taken up Mr Reyre’s case, said: “I find it appalling that health service bureaucrats are denying this elderly gentleman vital treatment to save his sight. He has served his country bravely and now the state is denying him this vital treatment.”

Macugen has a European licence and is being prescribed on the NHS in Scotland, but it has yet to win a licence in England. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is assessing the drug along with two others, which have been shown in trials can help wet age-related macular degeneration. It is expected to make an announcement in October.

The Department for Health has said that patients should not be refused a treatment simply because NICE guidance does not yet exist. The normal procedure if it is thought a patient might benefit from the drug would be for the patient, specialist or GP to ask their primary care trust to consider approving prescription as an exceptional case.

A legal campaign - similar to the one to secure Herceptin on the NHS - to eradicate regional inequalities over the prescription of Macugen and the two other drugs was launched last week by former Labour MP Alice Mahon. She took on her local trust in Yorkshire after it refused to fund treatment. It is now reviewing her case.

At least one of the drugs being assessed by NICE has appeared to partially restore sight. There are two kinds of age-related macular degeneration - wet and dry. There is no treatment which can help the dry type but the drugs could help those suffering from the wet form.

Bill Alker, of the Royal National Institute for the Blind, said: “I have only heard of two trusts - in Northamptonshire and Portsmouth - which have approved Macugen, but our message to the trusts and the Government is that it is far less costly to give this treatment because of the costs of supporting someone who is blind.” A spokesman for Somerset Primary Care Trust said: “There is an established procedure for Somerset Primary Care Trust - and all trusts - by which an individual patient or their hospital support can write to the PCT requesting funding of treatments which are not readily available.”

The trust said decisions were taken on a case by case basis and were not accountant-based. Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust said it could not comment on individual cases but said: “It is the usual practice of the ophthalmology department to explain all treatment options for patients with wet macular degeneration including Macugen. This would include an explanation of the position of the Somerset PCT, the exceptions committee and private treatment.”

TAG: blind, disability, disability and society, disabled, disabled benefits, disabled rights, war hero