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PAY UP OR DIE ; NHS Demand Pounds 10,000 for Cancer Drugs

Posted on: Monday, 14 February 2005, 06:00 CST

NHS bosses told a cancer patient she would have to pay pounds 10,000 for drugs that could save her life - or they would not prescribe them.

Patricia Marron, 67, had received various treatments for bone marrow cancer without success.

But when asked to try the new cancer wonder-drug Velcade, doctors said it was "too expensive".

Against Government guidelines they said they couldn't use it because it had not been approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Instead they offered to manage Patricia's decline with painkillers.

They only changed their minds when her husband Brian, a former manager on royal yacht Britannia, agreed to raise the pounds 10,000 himself.

Patricia showed an immediate improvement, but on Tuesday the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust refused to fund further treatment.

Brian, 68, said: "I am so upset about this. We have been kicked in the teeth.

"All I want to do is save my wife's life.

"They said you pay the first pounds 10,000 and the rest will then come from the clinician's budget. I have paid tens of thousands of pounds in tax and national insurance." After the Mirror intervened the Trust agreed to fund Patricia's remaining treatment, but not the initial pounds 10,000.

The couple from Keynsham, near Bath, described the past three months as "a nightmare".

Patricia was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma nine years ago, but in October the NHS said there was nothing more they could do. They refused to pay for Velcade, a new type of cancer drug which can kill off cancer cells by blocking enzymes.

Velcade is widely used across Britain, but some health authorities have refused to give it to patients.

Brian added: "Velcade totally changed my wife's life. Before she took the drug she couldn't walk."

Source: Daily Mirror

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