Inquest begins into the death of 27-year-old who fought ME for years

“Please help me get enough food to live.” The desperate words of Maeve Boothby O Neill, a young woman who died aged just 27 – nine years after being diagnosed with ME, the long term neurological condition which causes debilitating pain and fatigue.

Today her parents were in Exeter, on the first day of the inquest into her death. It heard how her GPs had struggled to get her the care which they thought she needed.