It was 2020 when a young British woman started taking a strictly controlled drug with recognized medical uses and became addicted. Now, at the age of 22, addiction, which poses an increasing threat to Europeans, has claimed her life, reports “Postimees”.
22-year-old Englishwoman Isabella Safferson-Moralia, known as Izzy, died of multiple organ failure, reports “news.com.au”. For five years, she took highly regulated drugs approved for medical use but associated with a high risk of abuse and physical or psychological dependence. This medicine contained ketamine.
Before her daughter’s death, her grief-stricken mother Anna Moralia struggled for 18 months to provide Izzy with the care she needed. She complained that her daughter’s addiction causes chronic pain and urinary incontinence, forcing her to spend around €940 a month on special sanitary pads.
She tried to warn health officials that without help her daughter would die, but to no avail.
Due to severe addiction, Izzy was underweight – at the time of her death she weighed only 35 kilograms, was pale and emaciated. A few days before her death, the young Englishwoman decided to leave the hospital to die at home.
Anna wanted to call an ambulance for her daughter more than once, but she refused. “No more hospitals mummy I can’t take it anymore” Izzy said.
“She knew she was dying for the last 48 hours. She died 36 hours after coming home,” Anna recalled.
Anna, a former nurse and now flight attendant, tried to revive her daughter, but to no avail. “I saved many lives in my career as a nurse and flight attendant, but in the end I couldn’t save my daughter’s life,” she added.
Izzy’s addiction started in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic when she moved in with her boyfriend. Anna’s mother did not find out about her daughter’s problem until the end of 2023, and by then Izzy’s addiction had become out of control and she could no longer hide it.
Anna believes that the Health Foundation could have helped her daughter, but due to prejudice, she did not receive the help she expected. “They just saw her as a ketamine addict and ignored everything else, especially the back pain. We sought help from bladder and bowel specialists, but they stopped treating her. The same went for the weight management team, who said she didn’t have an eating disorder. Then she just gave up.”
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Ketamine is a dissociative substance used as an anesthetic in human and veterinary medicine. It is also used in small amounts as an antidepressant and pain reliever. There is also a lot of recreational use outside of the medical setting.
