Appeal against SFW decision.

StrugglingStudent88

Hi,

I am currently in my second year in uni and have been refused funding other than the maintenance loan by student finance wales. I first went to university in 2006 however left after 6 months as I realised the course just wasn't for me.

I took some time out and went back to study a different course, in a different university in 2008. I completed my first year, however a few months into my second year I started suffering from major depression which really affected my attendance of lectures and I suffered from panic attacks during my January exams of that academic year. I was put on anti-depressants early in 2009 and also prescribed propranolol to help with the panic attacks. I left after the January exams to sort myself out and took an interruption of study returning in Sept 2010 to the same course but restarting my second year. I completed the year however failed 4 out of my 12 modules due to the panic attacks. Although I passed 8 modules, I only scraped passes but was lucky to do this as my panic attacks are very hard to deal with.

I needed to make an appeal to my university to sit these exams again during the summer of 2011, I missed the cut of date for this appeal by a matter of a few days because I found out that I was pregnant and obviously in massive shock and although it shouldn't have been, university was one of the last things on my mind. Because of this I had to repeat the year, but only doing the 4 modules I had failed. So I am repeating my second year, again, which is obviously very unfortunate and something I would like to have avoided.

When I applied for student finance, my funding for 2009/2010 was disregarded as they already knew I had left for medical reasons, as my university had told them this. However because I have used up my spare year of funding by going to university in 2006, I am not eligible for funding for this academic year. I made an appeal on the basis of my panic attacks, they are the reason I failed and need to repeat. I have given them a letter from my doctor explaining that I suffer from panic attacks since 2009 and listed the dates that I had seen him, I also gave them photocopies of some of my prescriptions.

My problem is that during the academic year 2010/2011 I was registered with a doctors surgery near my university, I went there in February 2011 as I was feeling really run down and stressed, and had suffered from the panic attacks during the exams that January, however the doctor didn't prescribe me with anything because I told him that I still had plenty of propranolol, his advice was to take the propranolol the day before my exams as well as on the day, to get plenty of sleep and to return if things got any worse.

When I returned to my home doctors surgery (the doctors surgery that wrote the note for SFW) there is no note in my medical notes of this, I know I attended the surgery however I do not know what exact date this was, and when I call them they couldn't be any less helpful. SFW have said that they need some sort of evidence for my condition between July 2010 and August 2011 however I really don't know what else to give them? My doctors letter explains that I saw him (my home doctor) during this time and that I was prescribed different medication to try and deal with the panic attacks as obviously they weren't getting much better, so I'm not sure why this isn't enough? I know they want some sort of evidence from my doctors surgery near to uni, but one of the main reasons that I transfered back to my home surgery is how useless they are.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Thank you.

agrinnall

I believe you are entitled to see your medical notes, if the surgery aren't being helpful it may be possible to go to the Health Board for assistance.

However, I think you need to consider whether continuing at university is really the right choice for you. Things are not going to get any easier for you to cope with, and I would be concerned that you may damage your health even more if you try to carry on. I don't know what you are studying or what career you hope to go into but there may be other options available that wouldn't cause the amount of stress that lectures and exams obviously are.