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Yvonne Maine - Source: ONE News -
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Doctors are calling for regulations on unregistered alternative practitioners after a skin cancer treated by a natural health consultant grew to invade a patient's skull. Warning: The video attached to this article contains medical images you may find disturbing.
The case has cost the health system tens of thousands of dollars and left the woman with a poor prognosis.
Yvonne Maine believed she was being treated for a benign cyst but it turned out to be a highly invasive malignant cancer. The skin cancer is so invasive that the Feilding woman's skull has rotted away.
The squamous cell carcinoma has gone through the bone, with the brain just underneath.
Maine knows she's lucky to still be alive and says now she just lives "one day at a time".
But it is unclear just how long that will be and the prospect of cure is very small.
Maine went to see her iridologist and natural health consultant, Ruth Nelson, for help with a three centimetre cyst on her head two years ago.
Nelson dressed, treated and prescribed pills for the wound every day for the next year. But Maine's daughter Carla says when the growth spread rapidly and pain set in she insisted her mum see a doctor.
Maine point blank refused - repeatedly.
Carla says she had screaming arguments with her mother and literally tried to physically bundle her into the car.
"It got to the stage I was too frightened to go to the doctor," says Maine.
ONE News called to see Nelson at her Te Horo practice but she wasn't in. When contacted by phone to discuss the case, Nelson said Maine called the shots.
"I said I'm not an expert - a number of times I said to her I'm not an expert on this," Nelson told ONE News.
Nelson acknowledged that she was practising outside her scope. "Oh yeah, definitely, outside anybody's scope in the end but I had no choice because I was begged to do it," she said.
Carla finally got her mum to hospital last June and in a challenging six hour procedure surgeons used two of her ribs to create a new skull. She then faced six months of radiation therapy.
The trauma could have been avoided if doctors had seen Maine months earlier.
Hutt Hospital's director of surgery, Swee Tan, says Nelson should have recognised she was out of her depth and referred Maine to an appropriate health practitioner.
"I think that's what you'd expect anyone who is looking after anybody, to seek help when things got out of control," says Tan.
But there are no regulations in New Zealand directing how most natural practitioners should operate.
"We should come up with something better than what we've got, because what we've got now is not good," says Tan.
Nelson is adamant she's not to blame. "I thought it was up to the family to do something about it," she says.
And Maine now admits she should have listened to her family.
"I am angry with myself, definitely angry with myself."
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Add a Comment:
Post new commentdouglas lunn said on 2010-10-24 @ 11:22 NZDT: Report abusive post
get a signed assurance that the patient has already seen their doctor and are now exercising informed consent. Comments show that bigotry is still alive and, as usual, unwell. Oldskool trust, honour and truthfulness vanishing. But at least one participant in this tv "drama" showed these qualities.
dkearney said on 2010-05-27 @ 15:25 NZDT: Report abusive post
Ruth Nelson , is a Lady totally committed to what she does, and is not driven by financial reward, unlike many Medical professionals. People travel from all over NZ to seek Ruths advice. There are a vast amount of ill people out there, that gave up on there Doctors, went and saw Ruth instead, followed what she recommended and became well. Medical and Natural Health people, need to learn to work together for the benefit of us all
Marchwood said on 2010-05-20 @ 20:24 NZDT: Report abusive post
I totally agree with Megan and Nina M, I know this practitioner personally and in no way would she ever tell somebody that they could not go to see a doctor, she is totally for freedom of choice, she is a wonderful woman who does amazing good in the community. My family have been going to see her regularly for over 25 years.
slumbergod said on 2010-03-08 @ 10:08 NZDT: Report abusive post
Anyone and everyone practising medicine should be regulated - especially alternative practitioners. Many deceive themselves into believing they are helping patients when in fact the opposite is the case. And the same goes for their quack medicines. Drugs should be tested whether they are herbal or not.
Paul Coddington said on 2010-03-08 @ 09:21 NZDT: Report abusive post
This story irresponsibly fails to warn people that so-called "natural" practitioners operate solely in the realm of the imagination. You may as well visit the neighbours cat for medical treatment. Registration will not solve the fundamental problem that dishonestly applying the word "natural" to quackery does not make it work.