A 27-year-old woman died from cancer during lockdown after she was “brushed” aside and left without a correct diagnosis or treatment.
Latifah King died on Wednesday last week after being incorrectly diagnosed with with sciatica by her doctor.
Sciatica is where the sciatic nerve, which runs from the lower back to the feet, is irritated or compressed.
Ms King was unable to see a medical expert in person for months and was depending on zoom call assessments, the Daily Mail reported.
But after feeling “unbearable” pain and seeing visible lumps she was finally admitted to hospital and offered a test.
It was just two weeks ago that she learnt she in fact had Epitheliod sarcoma, an aggressive form of soft tissue cancer and not sciatica.
Speaking to the Mail, the 27-year-old’s twin sister said she believed Ms King was “brushed” to the side because “the only killer they see right now is Covid.”
She added: “If it wasn’t a pandemic I believe more would have been done. Covid means other illnesses are getting pushed aside.”
Her death came just months after Kelly Smith lost her own battle to cancer.
The 31-year-old’s chemotherapy for bowel cancer was paused for three months in the first lockdown after hospitals were overwhelmed with cases of Covid-19.
The beautician and mother of six-year-old, Finn, was midway through the round of chemotherapy, which she believed was buying her time, when the pandemic hit.
Ms Smith tragically died before she could finish her treatment.
Last year, Miss Smith’s step-father, Craig Russell, told the Daily Mail that her life had been “traded” for those of Covid patients.
But now politicians are demanding that the Prime Minister tackles the cancer backlog with the same “will” he has shown for the vaccine roll-out.
In a letter signed by 75 cross-party MPs, including Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, it says that as many as 100,000 people could miss out on cancer treatment due to the impact of the pandemic.
The calls for a new national cancer recovery plan came after the health service in England said on Wednesday it had only seen around three quarters of the lung cancer patients that it would usually expect since the start of the pandemic.
The coalition of MPs also warned that “cancer lives are already being lost and we may lose as many as 35,000 patients and 60,000 life years to cancer as a result of the cancer backlog.”
They said the spring Budget – due to be unveiled by the Chancellor on March 3 – would be the ‘ideal opportunity’ for investment in a new cancer recovery plan.
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