A mother with terminal cancer has claimed NHS doctors gave her a scolding after she complained about her ‘awful’ treatment on social media.
Harriet Wilson, of London, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May 2021 and told the disease would likely kill her.
Tumours spread to the 34-year-old’s stomach and ovaries and she has undergone 12 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy to try to fight the disease.
Mrs Wilson — who confessed ‘there have been days I wanted to end it all’ — also had operations to remove cancerous parts of her liver and gallbladder.
Her chemotherapy was stopped in December and and she was told the cancer was terminal on January 21, with doctors switching her treatment to palliative care.
They told her she had weeks to live if she did not do any more chemotherapy or a year if she did, and prescribed her liquid morphine.
In an Instagram post on March 18, Mrs Wilson, who has three children, claimed she is now receiving no at-home care and can only talk to her NHS doctor at pre-arranged times every other Friday.
Days after complaining about the care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in London, she was allegedly hauled into hospital to tell her not to post things on social media.
Harriet Wilson, 34, from London, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May 2021 and was told the disease would kill her
Mrs Wilson has three children with her husband Dan: Darcey (centre), 14, Harry (right), six, and Nelly (left), four
Mrs Wilson said: ‘I did a video on March 18 on Instagram to talk about the way I was feeling because I didn’t have any professionals to talk to.
‘Afterwards I was called in to see the oncologist and the nurse told me I shouldn’t put stuff on my Instagram. They called me in to tell me off about my social media.
‘I had sleepless nights before I went in because I thought they would only call me in if it was something serious they wanted to discuss.
‘I was shocked, I said “you’ve got a woman here who is dying, a mother of three kids and you have got me out of my bed and here to tell me off about my Instagram?”.
‘If I want to run around naked on my Instagram I can, it’s a free country, although if I was naked I might have to put some emojis to cover my bits.’
She added: ‘I think the hospital were worried because the post got 50,000 views and they have been so awful with my treatment.’
In the original video, Mrs Wilson said she has experienced a rollercoaster of emotions after being told different things by different doctors.
She said: ‘I’ve got no care team now, I’m dying and I don’t even have a nurse, I don’t even have a doctor I can speak to.
‘All I’ve got is an oncologist who doesn’t take phone calls and he rings me every other Friday.
‘I’m in so much pain now I’ve literally been looking online and asking family members what I should do because I’ve got nobody to ask in the NHS.
‘People ask me “what about my care team?” and I just say Queen Elizabeth don’t have a care team, they don’t care. I don’t even have a MacMillan nurse.
‘Not once did the hospital or MacMillan nurses ever ask who’s got your kids or do you need help.
‘The hospital is that bad I saw a lady in chemotherapy and her children were sitting on the stairs waiting for their mum so I felt quite lucky that I have support from my friends and family.
‘My mum and dad have moved in with us to look after me.’
Despite the scolding, Mrs Wilson says her condition has improved since she raised the concerns. Her doctor has even said she could be put forward for surgery.
She also joked if she survived she would need to buy some new clothes and shoes because she had thrown all hers away.
Mrs Wilson married her long-term partner Daniel, 35, on February 18. She said she planned her wedding in a week because she had been told she was dying.
The couple have three children: Darcey, 14, Harry, six, and Nelly, four.
She said: ‘I have asked for my children to be tested because I have been worried about my cancer being hereditary but I’ve been totally ignored about that.
‘As a mum I’ve tried keeping their lives as normal as possible, Harry going football, Nelly ballet and Darcey kick boxing.
‘Without the help from my mum, aunts, cousins and best mates I wouldn’t have been able to do it.’
Mrs Wilson married her long-term partner Daniel, 35, on February 18. She said: ‘We got married in a storm, the weather was crazy but it didn’t stop us from doing our vows and chucking the most fabulous party with all of our family and friends’
She said she planned her wedding in a week because she had been told she was dying
Mrs Wilson, from New Eltham, said over the course of her treatment she had been told she at various times she did and then didn’t have cancer, or vice versa.
She said: ‘It’s been a constant battle, being told one thing and then another.
‘One moment I have lung cancer the next I don’t, the operation on my bowel is a success and then it isn’t.
‘There have been days I wanted to end it all myself, I even looked into going to Switzerland for a lethal injection.
‘I thought about taking all my tablets and not waking up but then I thought I still have fight in me and the fight is for my children and they need to know they must never give up and they are the reason I’m still alive now.’
A fundraising page has been set up by the Wilson family to pay for private treatments abroad.
She said: ‘We are looking at every trial and every therapy to keep me alive as long as possible.’
A spokesperson for Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust said: ‘We are unable to comment on individual cases due to patient confidentiality.
‘Harriet will receive a full response to her complaint once we have completed our investigations and in the meantime we wish her all the best with her treatment.’
