Leaving The Argus

Argus title : Farewell – and thank you all for reading

This will be my last column, at least in this newspaper and for the time being. I’ve been writing it for four and a half years and it seems strange to think I will be stopping now.

My family won’t regret the demise of what my daughter and I called “scary Thursday”, the day before the Friday deadline. If I was going to be anxious or grumpy, that was the day it would happen.

In other respects, writing for the newspaper has fitted very well around family responsibilities. It allowed me to earn some money while helping care for my father in the last year of his life. Since then, I’ve been able to fit writing days around my mother’s care and I’ve been grateful for that.

Caring for people with dementia is stressful and mentally taxing. Carers have to engage with lost memories and distorted perceptions – and though they must be alert at all times, they have also to operate largely without intellectual stimulation. So I’ve been lucky. Writing has allowed me to explore new ideas – and at the same time to step away from the anxious delusions that rule my mother’s world.

I am deeply grateful to the Argus for hiring me as a columnist. In 2003, when I first approached Simon Bradshaw the Argus’ then editor he took a great risk in taking me on. He can have had no certainty that I would be able to deliver on a weekly basis. I had absolutely no training as a journalist and had written only once for commercial publication.

In fact, there have been times when I unexpectedly couldn’t deliver, always due to family demands, but Simon – and subsequently Michael Beard the present editor – remained supportive.

Of course, Michael Beard would never express it in terms of good employment practice or commitment to equalities. He’d laugh and say “It’s cheaper when you don’t write. You’re too expensive anyway.” Of course, I wasn’t, but nobody expects good pay on a local newspaper.

Several people have asked me whether I found it difficult to think of things to write about, but it was no problem. As I’ve often said “The column’s just a way of getting rid of my temper”. I haven’t really been joking.

In the years before I had the column, I would fume impotently about what I had read in the newspaper or heard on television. Once I had the column I would cease ranting and simply write about it. It was hugely cathartic.

The problem has been the opposite. There have been too many topics. As the years have gone by I have found that I have been approached on a regular basis by people wanting to promote particular ideas or causes. Many have been from charities and I’ve been happy to oblige.

Some have represented more controversial organisations and in their case I have helped when I could. In general, I’ve had a remarkable amount of leeway, though from time to time subeditors (and lawyers) have removed what I have considered to be the best bits.

Very occasionally the editor has put his foot down and removed whole articles, but to his credit that has been extremely rare. I am very conscious that not many local newspapers engage columnists who are declared socialist feminist christians. There can hardly have been a week that I haven’t managed to seriously rile someone. And some of the people I’ve upset have been very powerful indeed – though most I think have forgiven me.

Fortunately, there have been many who’ve enjoyed reading the column, even though some of the ideas expressed there may have seemed challenging. I’ve been intrigued over the years to notice a distinct pattern of response. Pensioners, community activists and socialists – and the old communists and peaceniks who thrive in our city – tend to like the column and have used it well, frequently contacting me to politely insist I cover issues of importance to them.

Middle aged men and Conservatives have tended to say, kindly and I think sincerely, “I often don’t agree with you, but I enjoy reading the column”, while male manual workers often tease me by telling me it’s not controversial enough. Some radicals (usually young males) have veered between being graciously patronising when I write what they want or grossly insulting when I don’t – while interestingly their female counterparts tend to claim loftily that they “never read the Argus”. Fortunately for me other women do read the Argus and in general seem to like the column.

In fact, the thing that has brought me the greatest professional satisfaction over the past few years has been walking into shops, supermarkets and the occasional office and hearing staff behind counters and reception desks say triumphantly “I know you. I read your column”. On these occasions I’ve always left exhilarated.

Many people think the column is written for Guardian readers, but it isn’t. I write for people who buy The Argus – and I’m very conscious that for many of them, this may be the only newspaper they have money to buy or the time to read.

This is why, though I know the editor would have liked me to focus more upon local issues, I’ve often chosen to deal with national or international issues, though almost always with a local perspective. There are not many people who have the time to read 3 or 4 newspapers a day as I do. I have trawled the broadsheets and, as readers will know, have unashamedly pillaged and quoted from journalists I admire – such as Johann Hari, Robert Fisk, Joan Smith, John Pilger and Polly Toynbee.

There are 2 things I regret. One is that I was often unable to respond to readers’ letters. I apologise for that. The second is that there were articles I wanted to write and didn’t. I wanted to do more on the Tubas delegations to Palestine, on the EDO factory and St Peter’s Church, but couldn’t for reasons that were beyond my control. However, there were other articles I could have written, but didn’t. In several cases I gathered information, even interviewed people, but something blocked the process of writing.

Looking back on it, I realise that the people I couldn’t write about had often been involved with me in the Labour Party of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a painful time during which disciplinary action was taken against local Labour activists and councillors, of whom I was one.

I tried and failed to write about Ian Fyvie, a gentle man and former Labour activist, who for years has promoted folk music in the city. I admire Ian’s dedication to the music of the people and I wish I could have written about it. Somehow the words just wouldn’t flow.

I wanted to write about Joyce Gould, a former senior Labour party official who was on the other side of the dispute. At that time we called her the “witchfunder general” – but subsequently I came to know a different side of her, as a good friend and trusted colleague working for women’s rights. While we would never have agreed on Labour Party history, it should have been possible to write about her – but I never achieved it.

The unwritten article I most regret is the one I planned in honour of Rod Fitch. I wish beyond anything that I had written about him. A former Labour parliamentary candidate and anti-fascist organiser, he could be gentle like Ian, but was as iron-willed and fierce in his loyalties as Joyce. He was a man of formidable gifts and his death was a waste and a tragedy. I wanted to write about him, but it simply hurt too much.

I suppose there will be people who are delighted at the demise of this column. Some will be sad as I will be and others will disapprove. Still others, like my friend Tony Greenstein, will be furious, and say that it is a lost opportunity. I am sure that Rod would have agreed.

However, I have a part-time job at Age Concern to go to – and a book to write. And if I don’t do it now, it will never get done.

Cystitis can destroy lives

Argus title : Beware of this ‘minor’ illness

Just under a month ago, Olivia Crowther, 23, who studied English Literature at Sussex University and was planning a career in publishing, fell to her death from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Olivia left her London flat without telling her family and on Tuesday 24th June checked into a hotel in San Francisco. She was found by California Highway Patrol the next morning. It has emerged that prior to travel she had trawled suicide websites showing tall buildings and bridges.

Her parents are reported to be devastated. They said their daughter had no history of depression, describing her as “… a loving daughter who seemed to be making her way in the world.” They are struggling to understand what drove her to suicide.

Her uncle, Robert Leader, said the only unhappiness in her life was a nagging bladder problem – reported to be cystitis – which had afflicted her for a year and which doctors had failed to cure. There had been no indication it might drive her to kill herself. He said “It is a huge mystery and the only thing I can think of is that she had this health problem that became all-consuming for her and that was a constant nagging source of discomfort.”

Simon Davies studied with Olivia at Sussex University. He said: “.. she was a very clever girl and she never seemed unhappy. We often talked about the future and it seemed to me she’d go on to be successful.”

Her friend Zoey Monk worked with Olivia at SHE magazine. She said: “…. She was so well spoken and such a lovely girl. I would have never thought this would happen to her….”

Olivia was a beautiful young woman with everything to live for. Her family members are understandably angry that she was so readily able to access suicide websites which in effect showed her how to die. However, there is another source of concern here and that is the disease that caused her such torment.

Cystitis is a “minor” illness which is usually experienced by women and the elderly. As such it is often not taken seriously. Yet it can cause serious kidney infection, chronic pain, relationship breakdown and deep depression – and in the elderly, confusion akin to dementia.

Cystitis occurs when the normally sterile lower urinary tract is infected by bacteria and becomes irritated and inflamed. In 85% of cases bacterial infection is the cause – usually brought about by transfer of escherichia-coli (e-coli) from the bowel through the urethra into the bladder. It is very common in women because of the relatively short distance between the opening of the urethra and the anus and because the urethra is short and bacteria do not have to travel far to do damage.
Cystitis can easily be precipitated by sexual intercourse especially if there is bruising to the surrounding area (hence the term “honeymoon cystitis”). Once bacteria enter the bladder, they are normally removed through urination, however if bacteria multiply faster than they are removed infection results. This is why one of the simplest and most effective self-help techniques is to urinate immediately after intercourse.

The condition commonly affects sexually active adult women. In fact, almost all adult women will experience at least one attack. However, it may also occur in men, those who are not sexually active, catheter-users or children. Older adults are at particular risk.

The symptoms are a frequent need to urinate and a sharp, burning pain when doing so. Other possible symptoms include cloudy and sometimes bloody urine, backache, lower abdominal pain and fever. In elderly people, the most obvious symptom may be increased confusion.

It is true that many people who suffer from this complaint do not experience repeated or serious attacks. Nowadays proprietary brands of medicine, usually containing Potassium Citrate, are available over the counter. These can be used at the first sign of a symptom and often do the trick. However, for anyone who cannot afford the remedies, or who does not recognize the symptoms, it can be a very different story.

I vividly remember the excruciating pain I experienced the first time I had cystitis. After the lab results were returned the doctor commented with fascinated sympathy – and some macabre glee – that neither he nor the lab assistants had “ever seen such a virulent attack”. I paid dearly for it, because my kidneys were affected and after that I experienced repeated attacks. Each time I was given antibiotics, but was never taught the self help techniques which could have prevented the disease.

I recall one particularly unpleasant night attack. I had a high temperature and was bleeding and in great pain. In desperation I called an out of hours doctor to provide a prescription for antibiotics. The next day I reported this by telephone to the surgery only to have one of the receptionists comment in horror “You called out a doctor for cystitis!” I felt too ill and humiliated to object, but have thought about that ignorant and callous comment a great deal since poor Olivia died.

On one occasion, I was completely incapacitated after getting what my grandmother would have called a “chill on the kidneys” while boating on the Serpentine. My doctor poured considerable scorn on the idea that a “chill” could precipitate cystitis, saying that this was an old wives tale. Nonetheless, I discovered over time that a combination of dehydration and a chill across my back would almost always precipitate an attack. I learned that by drinking a great deal of water, keeping my lower back warm and taking a teaspoon of Potassium Citrate in water at the first sign of symptoms, I could completely avoid attacks.

Things changed for sufferers in the 1970s when Angela Kilmartin, herself a chronic cystitis sufferer, published her book “Understanding Cystitis”. It was part of a wave of publications about women’s health which sprang from the women’s movement of the time. These had in common deep scepticism about conventional medical practice and a commitment to prevention and self-help.

Kilmartin’s book became a bestseller. It emerged that thousands of women had suffered in silence from chronic cystitis and that there had been more than one cystitis-related suicide. At last, women began to realize that they were not just “making a fuss”, but were experiencing a significant and potentially serious health problem.

Self-help techniques began to be well publicised and circulated, first by women themselves and then by some doctors. Cystitis sufferers began to realize that repeated doses of antibiotics were causing chronic thrush which in its turn was causing re-infection. Women’s demand for better treatment eventually resulted in proprietary brands of medication for cystitis – and thrush – becoming available without prescription. However, it seems that in these so called post-feminist days, essential preventative techniques are being forgotten.

Women’s magazines, which in the 1970s and even the 1980s would have publicised such techniques, now seem more concerned with women’s sexual performance than with their health. Schools sex education programmes certainly don’t provide information. And yet, given the early sexual activity of so many young girls, infection is likely to be on the increase.

Cystitis is a sordid mean little disease. It doesn’t kill – at least not directly – but it can destroy lives. We will probably never know exactly what drove Olivia Crowther to her tragic death. All we can do is to try to understand her desperation and hope that as she jumped from that beautiful bridge, she felt an end to pain – and that for just one brief moment she thought she was flying.

Contact the Samaritans on 0845 7909090.

NOTE:

Effective preventative techniques are simple:
• drink 6-8 glasses of water a day and one glass of cranberry juice;
• urinate frequently (and immediately after sexual intercourse);
• keep scrupulously clean; and wipe from front to back after a bowel movement

If an attack occurs use proprietary treatments or get help from a doctor.

Methadone Madness

Argus title : End methadone reliance and fund abstinence – Addicts must go cold turkey or more children will die

Last Saturday, the Argus reported on the tragic death in Hastings of 9 week old Leon Faith Acton. Leon spent the first three weeks of his life in hospital being given doses of morphine to wean him off heroin addiction caused by his mother’s drug use during pregnancy.

Despite the fact that his mother was a using addict, Leon was discharged from hospital into her care before his body was free of heroin. According to the Argus report, his mother was instructed to give the baby methadone, a legal heroin substitute, to continue the “weaning” process.
On November 28, 2006, she gave him his usual dose of Oramorph, a morphine solution, However, the baby had also been given the painkiller Calpol. He developed severe breathing problems.
Leon was rushed by ambulance to the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards but despite efforts to resuscitate him he died. There were high levels of morphine in his body, but, according to a toxicologist, at a level that could have been caused by a prescribed dose. East Sussex Coroner Alan Craze recorded an open verdict, confirming “There was not a shred of evidence pointing towards this being in any sense a homicide whether by recklessness or deliberately.”
Hastings Police had suspected Leon’s mother might have deliberately over-medicated him to keep him quiet. They can’t be blamed for being overzealous. In July 2001 another Hastings couple killed a one month old baby by putting a massive dose of heroin on his gums or in his bottle. Amanda Turner and partner Joby Shorter were jailed for five years after they admitted manslaughter. Agencies were aware of drug use and domestic violence in the home.
In August 2006 at Hove Crown Court an addict called Emma Kelly pleaded guilty at to supplying class A drugs to her 9 year old son. She admitted her son was opiate-dependent and had been using methadone daily for about five weeks. Unlike baby Leon, her son survived and subsequently thrived in foster care.
The inquest on Leon heard that his mother had used heroin since she was 18, but at the time of his death was under treatment. Police found drug equipment in her property including syringes and burned tin foil together with methadone – which is commonly prescribed as part of a “drug treatment” programme. Mrs Rolfe admitted she had used heroin on the Sunday before the baby died, but said she did not do so often.
The Argus website includes many comments on this case, many of them critical of parents who continue to use drugs when they have the care of children. I have sympathy with this perspective and share public frustration with social workers and courts that continue to take risks with children’s safety. However, at the same time I question how much genuine support is available to mothers in this situation.

Some years ago, I met with a group of women in recovery from addictions. Almost all had experienced domestic and sexual violence and some had had children taken into care. Their violent partners controlled them not just by fear, but also by the fact that typically they controlled the drug supply. They spoke passionately about the urgent need for safe women-only treatment facilities within which women could either care for their babies or meet their children on contact visits.

The women pointed out that it remains very difficult to access detoxification or treatment facilities. They complained that professionals often seemed to discourage abstinence, saying that all too often they were fobbed off with prescribed methadone and forced back to the very environment which fed their habit. They said methadone is highly addictive and that withdrawal is often worse than from heroin.

I vividly remember attending a local training session on drug use and women, held around that time. A specialist drug worker employed by Health Services spoke at length about the virtues of “harm minimisation” and the need to “stabilise” addicts’ drug use during pregnancy.

When the time came for questions, I asked whether pregnancy might not be the best possible time to assist a woman into detoxification and abstinence, particularly given increased access by health professionals, concerns about foetal addiction and the possibility that children might be harmed or taken into care.

I shall never forget the withering contempt with which this idea was dismissed. I was forcefully informed that women could not cope with the rigors of detoxification at such a time and that stabilisation on methadone was by far the best option.

Years ago, I worked in local recovery services. I saw at first hand how vital abstinence-based treatment programmes were to people with serious addictions. I also observed the damage that could be done if doctors over prescribed medication, allowing drugs which should have been used for short term detoxification to become a permanent feature of addicts’ lives. By this means many local alcoholics became multiple drug abusers – and benzodiazipines and other legal drugs came to be traded like heroin on the city’s streets.

Successive governments, much influenced by the USA, have based their drug policies upon a two-pronged strategy of harm minimization and crime reduction. The primary focus has been to encourage “safer” drug use by addicts, while reducing the theft, burglary and street crime which traditionally funds their habit, by substituting the illegal substance with a legal one.

There is little doubt that methadone has its uses as a short-term solution. The difficulty is that the government has treated the “methadone maintenance programme” as an end in itself. Many addicts said to be “in treatment” continue to use heroin and other drugs. Indeed, there is no reason why they should not for they are not really in recovery. In effect, the state has become addicts’ supplier – and international drug companies are pocketing the profits.

Health professionals reassure addicts that their addiction is an illness which is being effectively “managed” by use of prescribed medication. So it is hardly surprising – given the distorted logic of using addicts – that many convince themselves that any additional illegal drug use is simply “recreational”. Hardly surprising too that social workers charged with the protection of children buy into the myth that a Methadone-dependent addict is a recovering addict – and therefore likely to be a safe parent.

It beggars belief that a woman known to be addicted, her body disrupted by child birth, whose judgment was known to be impaired by reason of her drug use and with the care of four other children, could be relied upon to administer addictive dangerous drugs to her small baby. The most basic commonsense should have made this impossible. Yet it happened and no doubt will happen again.

There are two factors in play here. One is the collapse of Social Services which means that greater and greater risks are being taken with children’s safety. But more significant by far is the naïve notion that an addict on methadone maintenance is different in kind from an addict on heroin.

Vernon Croaker, the Parliamentary Under-secretary for Crime Reduction, visited Brighton last week, to launch national awards for groups tackling drugs in communities.
He acknowledged that: “With any problem, whether substance misuse or alcohol, we can’t just solve it through one approach.” He was making a distinction between the criminal justice approach and community based solutions. However, he might with more reason have talked about the need for a range of different treatment options.
If the Government is to have any chance of tackling drug misuse – and the violence which comes with it – it must improve the range and effectiveness of treatment options and cease its slavish reliance upon methadone.
In addition, it must support and fund abstinence-based treatment programmes, ensure adequate child protection training for professionals and provide safe residential and community services for addicted parents and their children.
Until it does this, children will continue to die.