Cancer mum denied vital drugs
DAVID Cameron’s pledge to end Britain’s cancer drugs lottery faced its first test yesterday from a dying mother who is desperate to see her son start school.
Nikki Blunden, 37, was recently given just three months to live following a scan.
The aggressive form of breast cancer has spread to her brain.
Last week health chiefs denied her the potentially life-extending drug Lapatinib for “clinical and cost-effectiveness” reasons – despite it costing less than the treatment she has been receiving.
Anger was intensified by news yesterday that civil servants at a Government department paid an extra £32,000 for an “executive” range of recycling waste bins to impress visitors.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs bought the “aesthetically pleasing” range of wheelie bins at a cost of £148 each – instead of the standard £57.
It has also emerged that hundreds of pounds of taxpayers’ cash has been wasted on a Government-funded college course to teach girls how to walk in high heels.
Last night Mrs Blunden’s supporters also argued that spending taxpayers’ money to bribe the obese to lose weight or provide expensive treatments for self-inflicted illnesses caused by alcohol abuse mean that there is no cash left to buy time for the terminally ill.
Mrs Blunden’s heart-broken husband Richard, 37, said: “All we want is a little more time together as a family. Is that too much to ask?”
Furious relatives and supporters – aided by local MP Margaret Hodge – have now launched a campaign to force Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and Mr Cameron to live up to their election pledge to provide hope for terminal NHS patients.
“I’ve worked all my life and paid my taxes thinking that in my hour of need, the system would be there to help me,” said hairdresser Nikki at the home in Dagenham, Essex, she shares with Richard and son Thomas, three. Now I feel so let down. I’m not asking for the earth. I just want to try to live for a few more months so that I can see my son start school in September and possibly have another Christmas with him.”
In April, Mr Cameron outlined a plan for a cancer drugs fund with £200million being used to provide more people with drugs. “We want to get drugs together more quickly,” he said. “In the UK today there are thousands of people who want a certain cancer drug, whose doctors tell them they should have one, who don’t get it.”
The Department of Health said the cancer drugs fund would be launched next April which is too late for Mrs Blunden.
And by coincidence, the Government’s health rationing body Nice yesterday announced that it was refusing to fund the drug for thousands of women who need it.
Mrs Hodge has now urged the Health Secretary to turn the Tories’ promise into immediate action. “This drug is the only option left to Mrs Blunden,” she wrote in a letter to Mr Lansley. “How on earth can the Health Service refuse to give her that final chance to live a little longer?
Later she praised the Daily Express for fighting for Mrs Blunden, saying: “I’m delighted the Daily Express is taking this up. ”
A Department of Health spokesperson said it understood the guidance from Nice would come as a great disappointment. “Our priority is to give patients access to the drugs recommended by their doctors on the NHS. We will continue to seek agreement to schemes with pharmaceutical companies, which will enhance access for patients to costly medicines.”
