Earlier this month, former ‘Big Brother’ contestant Nikki Grahame died shortly after being discharged from hospital, where she had spent three weeks being treated for anorexia.
Grahame left hospital on a Friday. She was due to enter an outpatient clinic to continue her treatment after the weekend. Within 24 hours, she was dead.
At 38, Grahame had suffered from anorexia for three decades. Given the devastating toll that anorexia can have on the body and mind, it is almost impossible that she could have made much meaningful progress during her brief stay. But as the Labour MP Olivia Blake recently noted in a letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Matt Hancock, demand for beds for eating disorder patients far outstripped capacity even before the pandemic. For adults especially, this has meant that they are often left to fend for themselves.
