Children foot drug bill to save Mum

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Barbara Peters says her body is clear of cancer, thanks partly to $23,000 of drugs her family had to buy because the Government refused to pay.

The 66-year-old's four children borrowed the money to pay for Irinotecan, a chemotherapy agent available to cancer patients at public hospitals in Wellington and Hamilton but not in Auckland, where she lives.

A course of it and other chemotherapy agents controlled the spread of her bowel cancer so well that four liver tumours were removed last October.

She had previously had surgery to remove the bowel tumour and standard chemotherapy, paid for by the public system.

"Without Irinotecan, I would have been dead or going that way. It enabled me to have a life-saving operation."

Before starting on Irinotecan, doctors had told her that she would live only a few months.

But a blood test this month showed that she was free of cancer.

She now felt "fantastic ... as fit as a buck rabbit," apart from arthritis in her knees.

"I'm living a pretty hectic life and I don't have much spare time," said Mrs Peters, of Western Springs, who helps to look after her five grandchildren.

But Mrs Peters, who first spoke out in the Herald last August, remains angry that free access to Irinotecan through the public system depends on where you live.

The Auckland District Health Board should "do something about it. Why are we penalised?"

"There must be hundreds out there like me, because bowel cancer is one of the biggest [killers]."

The latest Weekend Herald featured North Shore patient Sandy Birse, who is paying up to $30,000 for his private course of Irinotecan.

The drug is usually used to buy extra time for patients, although it can produce such a good response that surgery can be considered.

Cancer specialists and the Cancer Society say government health agencies are moving too slowly on paying for patients to receive Irinotecan and at least four other chemotherapy agents used routinely overseas.

A working party reported to the Health Ministry in December on national guidelines for use of the drugs, but the ministry expects to take a further six months to consider the issue.

The Auckland board's management has said that it will not pay for Irinotecan for patients until the guidelines are issued.