Before I go, I'd like to say thank you to all of you for doing so much for the Royal Osteoporosis Society.
As I say, I have been here for a very long time. When I first met Linda Edwards, I think there were two people working in the offices. It was absolutely tiny and we did think to ourselves: 'What are we going to do to try and make it bigger and better? And will it ever happen?'. I see what is happening now and I have to pinch myself to believe it.
Because then, osteoporosis was seldom discussed, rarely diagnosed, and always attributed to old women. When my mother and grandmother were diagnosed, they said ‘sorry you’re old, nothing we can do about it. We can give you a painkiller and that is it’. So I was determined, after she died, to see if we could get it on the map and hopefully, people are talking about it more, drugs are getting better and better, and with the DEXA scanners, we are able to diagnose so much quicker and it does change people’s lives now. If everybody here hadn’t had all these things, I do not know where you would be. The modernisation, the technology, that has happened in osteoporosis is incredible.
So let’s go from strength to strength and make it even better.
Craig (Jones, ROS CEO), I know you have been absolutely wonderful, and everybody here has done their bit. I am sure in ten, twenty years' time, who knows, we might see the end of it.
That is the hope for us all, that one day we can blitz it from our lives forever.
It is lovely to be here and see all the new offices, so thank you very much.
