PATIENTS with serious chronic conditions are being denied access to a unique Scottish hospital because of a postcode lottery, it has been claimed.

Health boards are acting like “dictatorships” in denying people access to the NHS Centre for Integrative Care (CIC), according to campaigners fighting for its survival.

They are urging the Scottish Government to ensure that Scotland-wide access is restored by providing national funding for the centre.

The issue will go before the Scottish Parliament’s public petitions committee next week led by former health professional Catherine Hughes, who is also a patient at the hospital and says she would not be alive today if it had not been for the treatment she had received from it.

Formerly known as Glasgow’s Homeopathic Hospital, the campaigners claim it is suffering “death by a thousand cuts” because only four health boards out of 14 now regularly send patients to the centre. Beds at the in-patient unit have been cut from 15-7 and it is now shut at weekends, with the patient pharmacy also closed.

“Health boards should not act like dictatorships in denying chronically ill people choice,” said Hughes, who was part of the successful campaign to save the centre’s in-patient unit when it was threatened with closure ten years ago.

Her petition will go before the committee on Tuesday supported by Elaine Smith, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston.

A separate petition on the Change.org website in support of the centre has nearly 30,000 signatures.

“Patients denied access by their local health boards include sufferers from multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, severe arthritis, Parkinson’s, and Crohn’s disease, motor neurone disease, ME and fibromyalgia. Cutting off such patients from their wish to be treated at this specialist centre, because of where they live, is scandalous,” said Hughes.

The campaign is backed by Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, which represents over 1,000 groups and individuals with long-term conditions.

Custom-built in 1999, aided by £2.78 million of charitable funds, the NHS staff at the hospital are conventionally qualified as well as having various holistic qualifications.

“The hospital is very successful, and has won many awards, and is highly appreciated by patients as it has 100 per cent patient satisfaction ratings,” said Hughes.

“We therefore cannot understand why access is being denied to patients who could benefit and also why this successful model is not being replicated and is also not being invested in and expanded.”

The campaigners say the centre is in line with Government guidelines about helping patients with self-management of chronic conditions while treatment is cheaper than conventional services.

A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) said: “The hospital has historically been known as the Homeopathic Hospital but it offers a more complex and multidisciplinary approach to care.

“A newly defined model of care was therefore introduced in 2011 which better reflects the essence of the care provided at the CIC.

“This new model has created the clarity required for all parties who have had an interest in the historical provision of “homeopathic” care and thereby maintains a sustainable service for the future. As we have consistently said the position we adopted after the 2005 review to retain the inpatient service has not changed.

“However we are reliant on the ongoing commitment from other boards to make use of the inpatient services to maintain their viability.”

Lanarkshire, Lothian and Highland are the latest health boards to stop referring new patients to the centre.

However, the petition states: “Boards still have to pay annually when they withdraw patients, until service level agreements end, an estimated £188,000 in NHS Lanarkshire’s case and the NHS Lothian agreement is for another two years claimed to be £53,627 annually to NHSGGC for homeopathy-linked services.

“Boards’ reasons were given as their opposition to homeopathy – though the CIC uses many other holistic, complementary and integrated treatments, including conventional methods.”

Hughes said: “It is undemocratic to allow the prejudices of a few people on health boards to dismiss the many patients who said CIC services worked for them.”

She added: “That’s why patients are now appealing to the elected parliament and government to step in.”

Dr Harpreet Kohli, NHS Lanarkshire’s director of public health and health policy, said: “NHS Lanarkshire’s consultation exercise was based on a review of the services provided by the CIC.

“The Scottish Government was informed at all stages of the process and the Scottish Health Council oversaw and approved the process.

“However, existing patients will continue to access the current service provision until their course of treatment is completed.”