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UK: Billy Caldwell 'will have medical cannabis returned' after being confiscated by Home Office Jilly Beattie Belfast Live Saturday 16 Jun 2018 The Home Office last night agreed to return medicinal cannabis oil to Billy Caldwell under supervision of a neurologist. It is understood the change of heart was triggered after a public outcry when the media revealed the child’s life was on a knife edge following back-to-back seizures yesterday. The 12-year-old, who suffers from epilepsy, is now an inpatient at Chelsea and Westminster hospital and will remain there until he has stabilised further. A source told Belfast Live: "The licence is being fast-tracked by government officials and we hope Billy will have his oil returned to him this weekend. "He is safe at the moment in hospital and his mum is with him but he was in a really bad situation earlier and home care is not enough now if he has an other seizure. "His team has been tasked to find a neurologist to work with them and deal with Billy's medical needs.. but the medical expert has to have worked with Billy previously and be willing to work with him now." The move comes after the boy, from Castlederg, Co Tyrone , was left fighting for his life while his cannabis medication sat on a desk in the Home Office. Paramedics rushed Billy to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London after rescue medications failed to bring him out of a massive seizure. He had been admitted to St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, for seven hours from Thursday night into the early hours yesterday. But he drifted from a deep sleep into a series of increasingly deeper and potentially deadly seizures. Then shortly after lunchtime Billy was hit with a massive fit leaving rescue medication useless. The cannabis oil he had been taking to prevent seizures was 3.2 miles away at the Home Office. His mum Charlotte told Belfast Live: “I need people to know my son is dying. They are letting him die. “The only thing that can save him, his anti-epileptic medication, is sitting on a desk in the Home Office out of our reach. I’d ask [Policing Minister] Nick Hurd to bring it to me now.” Outlawed in the UK, the oil had been seized by Customs officers in Heathrow Airport days earlier. By 4.30pm yesterday Billy was taken by ambulance to an emergency ward at Great Ormond Street. Urgent calls were made to Dr David McCormick, the consultant in paediatric neurology who specialises in epilepsy and works closely with the Government. Charlotte had been advised on Monday to have her son examined by Dr McCormick, but a week on no appointment has been forthcoming. Further calls were made to the Home Office by Dr John Burton in Belfast and Catherine Jacobson director of clinical research at Tilray, whose seven-year-old son has intractable epilepsy and whose company is running the medicinal cannabis trial Billy was placed on. Lead consultant on the paediatric ward at St Mary’s, Dr Rebecca Salter, treated Billy on Thursday. Her report stated: “Impression – recurrence of seizures possibly due to stopping Medicinal Cannabis Oil. At risk of subsequent seizures.” Belfast Live can reveal the Tilray anti-epileptic medication prescribed for Billy in Canada last week was taken on Thursday from Heathrow. A source said: “Seven bottles, one opened, the rest sealed, were taken from Heathrow with a destination of the Home Office. They would have been there long before Friday.” https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/billy-caldwell-will-medical-cannabis-14792048
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