I NOTE with interest your front page report on medicines ("Treatment lifeline for patients with rare illnesses," The Herald, February 3.
My husband suffers from prostate cancer, which has metastasised into his bones. His oncologist recommended him for Abiraterone drug treatment, through the individual patient treatment request, as he believed it would prolong and improve the quality of his life. This was refused on the grounds that "there was no evidence presented that this patient would have a significantly different response to the population of patients covered by the medicine's licence". What's more, we were refused the right to appeal this decision. How could there be evidence of a beneficial effect without the drug being tried?
I wrote to Cabinet Secretary for Health Alex Neil on January 13, appealing against this decision, and pointed out, amongst other arguments, that my husband had worked all his life until over the age of 70; had paid all his taxes, and also employed latterly more than 300 people, who also paid their taxes and national insurance, garnering many thousands of pounds for the NHS and the Government. Abiraterone is available in England. Should we move there? I requested a prompt reply, and still have not heard from him.
This trumpeting statement about the new availability of drugs certainly hasn't worked in our case. Recently Prof David Haslam, chairman of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) stated that British patients should be more pushy in requesting drug treatment, and that they needed to be "equal partners" with doctors to get the treatment they needed.
We have now been forced to go privately for Abiraterone in the hope that over the next few months it will prove to be helpful to my husband, and then we can appeal again to the NHS to supply the treatment.I've hesitated to write this letter, as I fear it may prejudice any future appeal. However, it may send a message to those in authority who hold the lives of our loved ones in their hands.
Lesley Mackiggan,
61 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
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