There’s a dangerous myth that people living with sickle cell are drug seekers and only go to hospital for the painkillers. This is completely false: a sickle cell crisis puts the person into agonising pain and they need medication to be able to get through this. Sadly, the public and healthcare professionals alike believe that they’re pretending to access narcotics.

Listen to Iyamide Thomas calling in to a BBC Radio London show about painkiller addiction to bust the myth and explain that sickle cell patients are not addicts.