A Canarian family asks for help to prevent their daughter from dying of anorexia. Jenny Arteaga Cowper, 26 years old and native of Tenerife, She has suffered from purging anorexia nervosa for years., an eating behavior disorder (ED). His family, with his father Tony Arteaga, denounces the abandonment to which these patients are subjected in Canary Islands and asks for help to prevent the disease from ending the life of her daughter. “My daughter is dying. Purging anorexia nervosa is a mental illness, a pathology that is not sufficiently visible and that does not have the health resources to treat it as it should, ”Tony denounces.
the young She has been admitted twice to the Psychiatric Unit of University Hospital of the Canary Islands (HUC) in Tenerife. On the first occasion, she remained admitted to said unit for three months, from September to December 2021. He entered with 56 kilos and left with 51 kilos. During her second hospital stay, from which she left last April, the young He weighed 46 kilos measuring 1.70.
“It is a disease that is different in each person, normally it is suffered by girls of 13 and 14 years of age. My daughter has been admitted to psychiatry along with other people with various pathologies that she should not be with. They are all mixed up and without specific care for them », she says.
Every time that passes, and with each new admission, Jenny’s state of health suffers putting his own life at risk.
Before falling into this eating disorder Jenny She worked as a stewardess and led a totally independent life. All this has been taken away by his illness, which marks the day to day of his life and that of his relatives. these sThey go out of their way to ensure that the young woman has adequate care and can overcome this pathologybut the road is not being easy at all.
nightmare life
His life has become a real hell. At his tiny weight, with a very low muscle mass index, anxiety attacks, depression and suicide attempts are added. «Jenny has not stopped fighting but she is already tired, he says he only does it to keep his parents and sister hopeful. We are desperate. We don’t feel abandoned”denounces his father.
In recent weeks he has interspersed good moments of stability with relapses. From the first moment she has had the support of her family, her fundamental pillar to battle against this mental illness. But the forces are reaching their limit.
«She has not stopped fighting but she is already tired, she says that she only does it for her family»
“We love her very much. Her mother and I are separated but we get along very well and she spends long periods on the Island taking care of her daughter. She is a great woman, she returned to England with her husband and in a few days she returns to Tenerife because of my daughter’s situation. There are days when everything goes well, in fact we were at the beach a few days ago, but suddenly she changes her mood and she relapses again », she explains between tears of impotence.
His family denounces the lack of support from the Canary Health Service (SCS) to patients with an eating behavior disorder and scarcity of resources to deal with pathologies, which although they mostly affect young adolescents, is increasingly present in other age ranges. “The Canary Islands do not have a specific unit in any of their hospital centers or on any island to cure eating disorders. It is a shame that in the entire Archipelago there is no unit to treat this type of pathology while there are in several autonomous communities of the Peninsula, ”he adds.
hospital admissions
After two hospital admissions and with her health seriously affected, the only way left for the young woman is to move to one of the specific units on the Peninsula, such as those located in Madrid or Barcelona. But this, for the moment, has not been possible. «They tell me that there has to be six or seven admissions to be able to transfer it to the Peninsulaa, we have the right to go to a specialized unit that exists in several autonomous communities such as Madrid or Catalonia. It’s incomprehensible. Five or six incomes from my daughter is taking it to the limit. My daughter suffers from an illness and the system fails with her,” she says.
“We only ask for the creation of a specific unit on any island or a day hospital”
Every time you have been discharged from the hospital the process returns to a standstill, in which the health care becomes outpatient. “When he leaves the hospital they follow him in what is called ambulatory medicine the psychologist sees her half an hour every twenty days, the psychiatrist sees her a month and a half later and the endocrinologist never sees her. So my daughter will never be cured of her disorder, which is why we need a specialized unit in the Canary Islands. What good is it for me to be discharged if no specialist sees her? It will never heal, so they fall back. Right now he is at home. It’s terrible. despair is tremendous“, Explain.
He fears that one of those relapses will be the definitive one, that’s why move heaven and earth so that your voice is heard and improve care for these patients in the Canary Islands. «I do not understand how public money is wasted as with the car circuit in the south of Tenerife while there are unattended patients. They have been calling for the creation of a unit for yearsThey have promised it several times but they never do it, “he denounces.
collection of signatures
Faced with this situation in which the impotence to see how his daughter deteriorates every dayTony has started a collection of signatures in www.change.org to claim the creation in the Canary Islands of a specific unit for the treatment of all types of existing eating disorders. A petition that currently has more than 56,000 signatures and that it is not the only one that is going on right now.
“It is not about creating or building a hospital. We only ask for the creation of a specific unit on any Island or a day hospital. Where patients do group therapy, eat or feed mainly there and receive every day of the week the visit of a psychologist, a psychiatrist and an endocrinologist. You cannot make a disease like this chronic, recovery is achieved if you act quickly and in the Canary Islands it is not being done. This same request has already been made by more families with the same problem What does my daughter have? It is time to join forces so that they hear us », she anticipates.
In fact, only on the platform www.change.org there is going six petitions to collect signatures to support the creation of this specific unit. The oldest dates back to 2015which shows that it is a claim that has been waiting for years to be addressed. In total they have 180,269 signatures. An example of the magnitude of the health problem and the cry for help launched by the families of patients with eating disorders through social networks as a last resort.
