WEBINAR: Women’s health and cannabis medicines | 02 Motherhood

The second in a four-part series of expert webinars, exploring the role of medical cannabis in women’s health. 

Despite being legally prescribed medicinal cannabis, many mothers and children experience shame and stigma when using it in their day to day life, mostly due to misinformation and misunderstanding.

In this episode we were joined by a panel of clinical experts, patients and patient advocates, to explore the experience of mothers who rely on medical cannabis for their own or their child’s condition.

Meet the panelists

Hannah Deacon

Hannah Deacon is an award-winning campaigner on access to medical cannabis. She ran a

campaign in 2017/18 with the lobby group End Our Pain to fight for access to medical cannabis on the NHS for her son Alfie. The campaign was successful and resulted in her son’s doctors

receiving the first permanent schedule one license to prescribe medical cannabis on the NHS for him in June 2018. This campaign led to the law change in November 2018. Alfie received the first legal NHS prescription for medical cannabis and still benefits from this nearly three years later.

Hannah now continues to campaign for fair access to medical cannabis treatments on the NHS and is also the Executive Director of The Medical Cannabis Clinicians society and Director of Maple Tree Consultancy. Through this work she hopes to help create a patient-focused sector which will benefit patients like her son Alfie. She is also the co-founder and vice chair of the organisation of Medcan Support, helping to support parents and carers of children who require cannabis medicines to manage their conditions.

www.medcansupport.co.uk

Gillian Flood

Gillian was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in her teen years, and then later in life with PTSD and fibromyalgia. Gillian used various different medications to combat her symptoms.

Over the years, she has tried numerous antidepressants and gabapentinoids in order to try and subdue high pain levels and various other symptoms that she has been suffering from. Since being prescribed medical cannabis in April 2020, Gillian’s life has changed and she is able to spend her time with her six children, five of whom have ASD, therefore needing a lot of support. Subsequently, the pressure has been taken off of Gillian’s husband, who previously was in charge of the family’s daily life.

Gillian is an avid patient advocate and a member of PLEA (Patient-Led Engagement for Access) Patient Working Group. She wants cannabis medicines to be available through the NHS for anyone who requires it and wants to see an end to the stigma surrounding parents who take cannabis medication.

www.pleacommunity.org.uk

Dr Sally Ghazaleh

Dr Ghazaleh is a Pain Management Consultant at the Whittington Hospital, and the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, London. She also prescribes cannabis-based medicines and is the Women’s Pain Expert at Integro Medical Clinics.

Sally specialises in managing patients with lower back pain, neck pain, neuropathic pain, abdominal pain, cancer pain, complex regional pain syndrome, post-stroke pain and fibromyalgia. She has a particular interest in bladder and abdominal pain in women, and women’s health in general. She is fluent in Arabic, English and Hungarian.

www.integroclinics.com

Sarah Higgins CNS

Sarah is a Clinical Nurse Specialist, with over 10 years’ experience working in the NHS. She developed an interest in medical cannabis and its application in women’s health following the implementation of routine screening for recreational drug use in sexual and reproductive health services. On exploring this further she identified a trend in which women were often

self-medicating with cannabis for hormone related difficulties.

Sarah is also the Women’s Health Lead at non-profit organisation CPASS Nurses Arm. The organisation’s nurse, midwife, and educator-led principal focus is on improving health, clinical outcomes and patient experience, through building nursing and midwifery leadership capacity to make significant improvements to the cannabinoid patient care environment.

www.cannpass.org

Watch episode one in the series Women in Pain here