Mum of boy who went blind after only eating chips blames health care system
The mother of a teenager who went blind after only eating crisps and chocolate has blamed the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) for his condition.
Kerry James said she and her son Harvey Dyer feel let down by the NHS because they failed to intervene sooner.
Appearing on ITV’s This Morning on Tuesday (local time), Ms James claimed doctors could have done more to treat Harvey’s eating disorder, known as “avoidance restricted food intake disorder”.
Last October 18-year-old Harvey went blind in his left eye and a doctor blamed it on the lack of vitamins and minerals in his diet.
The doting mother believes vitamin A injections could have saved Harvey's sight if they were given to him at an earlier age.
"If they’d done the blood test then and realised [Harvey’s] Vitamin A was so low, they could have given him the Vitamin A injections then,” Ms James said, adding the injection “could have saved” his sight.
"Now we’ve just got to wait and see."
"We were offered the milkshakes and things like that but at the time you weren’t able to take it at all. I think she said to him you’re getting older now you need to take responsibility and eat these foods."
Ms James said Harvey would sweat, cry and scream when offered foods he didn’t like.
And when she took him to a paediatrician as a child, she couldn’t get him to take the medication they offered.
The mother insisted she "could not have done any more" to help her son and that she is not a "bad mum".
Urusula Philpot, a dietician at Leeds Beckett University who was also appearing on the show, said she also believed Harvey had been failed by the system.
Ms Philpot said he should have been given appropriate vitamins and minerals in injectable form.
She argued that Harvey and his family had had an experience that "shouldn't have happened".
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