NHS DOCS WON'T TREAT MY BEN, 8

A MUM has been forced to pay for a doctor to diagnose her son with ME.

Ann Smith has been battling with doctors since she first suspected that eight-year-old Ben had the condition.

NHS doctors in her home town of Elgin and in Aberdeen don't accept Ben has ME - though he was registered as Britain's youngest person with the illness.

He has been dogged by fatigue and illnesses since he was a baby and Ann, 31, has already forked out pounds 1,000 to have a Harley Street specialist diagnose Ben.

Now she fears having to pay thousands more to have him privately treated.

"The doctors said he had psychiatric problems and should be treated for those," said Ann. "But he isn't mentally ill.

"Why must I pay for private treatment when a hospital on the doorstep could treat him if it opened its eyes?"

ME - myalgic encephalomyelitis - is known in the UK as "yuppy flu".

A Grampian NHS Trust spokesman said: "ME is not a condition that we recognise or treat."

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