UK NEWS

MUM FORCED TO PAY £21,000 FOR A CANCER DRUG TO SAVE HER LIFE

ASHAMED: NHS did not provide support

Thursday January 10,2008

By Martin Stote

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(3)

A MUM who planned her own funeral after being told she had terminal cancer, survived after splashing out £21,000 of her own money on a wonder drug not available on the NHS.

Barbara Moss, now in remission, was forced to use her own pension money when doctors told her she had between just three and five months to live.

The 53-year-old took early retirement after she was diagnosed with “inoperable” bowel cancer in November 2006, which gradually spread to her liver. Her local Worcestershire Royal Hospital informed her that there was no treatment available on the NHS which would save her life.

When I went into hospital, I didn’t assume I would be coming out again

She was so convinced she was going to die she started to plan her own funeral and make other arrangements for her death. But the retired English teacher was determined to give herself the best possible chance of survival and began to research alternative treatments on the internet. She discovered a miracle drug called Avastin, which attacks cancer cells in the same way the immune system fights a virus.

The only major drawback was the cost, £21,000, which she would have to fund herself. Barbara, from Worcester, used her pension money to pay for the drug, which she took alongside the more conventional chemotherapy treatment at the private Knightsbridge ward of Cheltenham General Hospital. Her move to a private clinic 30 miles from her home, meant she also had to pay for the chemotherapy.

Last October, surgeons at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, removed a tumour following a five-hour operation. Despite her fears she might never regain consciousness, Barbara not only survived the op but has now beaten the cancer. The mother of two, who is taking a further course of Avastin to make sure her cancer does not return, is now campaigning to get the drug officially recognised and introduced on to the NHS.

She said: “ When I went into hospital, I didn’t assume I would be coming out again. I had been planning my funeral - Now I have my life again. It was like a miracle. “It was amazing, utterly overwhelming. I was accepting death but now I no longer feel like I have to accept it.”

The Avastin was taken in tandem with four courses of chemotherapy, which caused the cancer to shrink so that an operation could take place without killing her. She believes if it had not been for private treatment she would not be alive today.

Barbara slammed the NHS, adding: “They should be ashamed of themselves. “People should be entitled to this. I would not have had my life extended without private medical health care.”

A spokesman for Worcestershire Primary Care Trust said: “ We are not able to comment on individual cases, but our policy is to refer to National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for guidance on specialist drugs for particular treatment and we adhere to their decision on whether there is clinical evidence. “

There are almost no cancer drugs that are life-saving. They are nearly all life-extending”

NHS

10.01.08, 1:57pm

The NHS in not as most peole think a National Helath Service.
It stands for

NO HOPE SERVICE.
NO HEALTH SERVICE
NOT HERE SORRY

IT should also actually read as LHS, Local Helath Service as it IS a post code lottery where one city has the money when another does not, if it was a proper NHS then the money should be moved around to everyone but there is now chance of that happeining.

Here is another solution STOP all the funding by the NHS for the following.

SMOKERS they can quit on there own if they want, and don't give me the rubbish that they are addicted, they got themselves that way.

DRUG addicts they choose to use these drug so stop all the needles and Methadone, if they want to kill themselves GOOD they are a waste of space anyway, the wish to play russian roulette let them. I will not mourn any who die this way.

There I have saved millioins to help the real people who need the money for drugs.

Also I know the drug companies have scientists who need paying to develop these liffe saving drugs but to make them so expensive is criminal as they makevast profits aome of which goes to shareholders which again could help the needy.

• Posted by: KEEF • Report Comment

THOSE NICE PEOPLE

10.01.08, 12:53pm

I am repeatedly apalled by the so called NICE people who can effectively apply the death sentence to so many unfortunate casualties of serious illnesses. This poor lady must have been in serious shock having received the news about her cancer; but then to be told that the health service would not fund a potentially life saving drug..... It makes me very, very angry, let alone how she and her family must have felt.

Last year we were told of the case of the two married pensioners, both of whom had macular degeneration and the health service would only fund treatment for one eye between them. How are they getting on???

The health service is a public service with many, many good people wotking within it. The sooner the people at the top start to focus on the patient (their customers, the people who pay their salaries) the better. They should not be looking at the cost of these drugs but the value and benefits that they can bring to the sufferers.

• Posted by: DerekB • Report Comment

HOW MUCH TO LIVE?

10.01.08, 11:26am

Typical of the way our medical system is run. New drugs come out, get tested in places like the USA and then before they can be used over here, have to undergo all the same stringent tests by the inaptly named NICE. Meanwhile people are dieing needlessly or spending vast amounts to get drugs from overseas. I understand that they don't want another Thalidomide incident, but neither does America. I'm waiting for Stem Cell to be developed to hopefully cure the MND, but by the time NICE have carried out their tests, I will be pushing up daisies. I don't want to die yet!!!

• Posted by: snaredrum • Report Comment