Instead of spending $150,000 on a house, I'll be spending it on my life

Kendall Hutchings is a 40-year-old teacher living with two children - and a cancer that is likely to kill her unless she can raise $120,000.

She needs the money for a potentially life-saving drug the Government will not subsidise for her and hundreds of other women in the same situation.

The "bald-with-no-breasts" single mum admits to feeling humiliated about asking for help to buy the breast cancer drug Herceptin but has steeled herself through it.

"I've got two children who need me so it's not just about my life, it's about their lives too," she said.

The irony is that if Ms Hutchings, a Selwyn College teacher, waits long enough for the cancer to attack her other organs - so she has no hope of surviving - she will receive Herceptin.

"I need to be here for my kids ... it's not logical for me to spend the rest of my life anticipating secondary cancers," she said. "The reality is I have two children whom I love, who depend on me. I'm a teacher. Every day I deal with kids who've lost a parent and it damages them for life."

Ms Hutchings is one of the 600 women who spent last week waiting for funding agency Pharmac's decision on the use of Herceptin.

Trials have shown that women in the early stages of the disease who are treated with the drug are 50 per cent less likely to die or suffer a cancer recurrence than those on standard treatment.

But on Thursday a Pharmac committee expressed concern about "safety issues", restricting the drug until Medsafe - the Health Ministry's medicines regulator - licences Herceptin.

The only way Ms Hutchings and other women can get the drug is to pay.

She has had a double mastectomy and needs three courses of chemotherapy: the first is government funded; the second, using Taxotere, costs $26,000; the third, using Herceptin, costs $120,000.

Instead of spending $150,000 on a house, "I'll be spending it on my life," said the mother of Jessie, 7, and Louis, 5, who rents her home and drives a 12-year-old car.

Every day, seven New Zealand women are diagnosed with breast cancer - 25 per cent of them would benefit from the drug.

National MP Jackie Blue, a former breast physician, said Herceptin had been evaluated in four trials involving 13,000 women. She said Pharmac was "probably balking at the cost" but "time is of the essence for these women". National was committed to extending funding to women who needed preventive treatment, she said.

Libby Burgess of the Breast Cancer Advocacy Coalition was gobsmacked at the implication that Herceptin was safe for people who could pay for it, but unsafe for others.

"It doesn't make sense," she said.

Ms Burgess said Pharmac made its decision on "poor information" and should have consulted its own cancer treatment sub-committee, which includes Auckland oncologist Dr Vernon Harvey, "and he made exactly that point - it's either safe or it's not safe. It shouldn't depend on whether you've got the money or not".

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Pete Hodgson said there was a procedure to approve funding new treatment with Herceptin and the Minister would not "get in front of that process" by signalling what he thought should be done.

Ms Hutchings, whose supporters have launched a campaign to raise the funds she needs, admits she's had to steel herself to go begging.

Unlike other women who have mortgaged homes, she has "nothing of value" to sell.

She is receiving support from Jessie and Louis' father, but her cheerfulness can't hide the fact she's juggling a fulltime job and two kids, while suffering through chemotherapy. On Tuesday she'll be back "looking at the inside of a hospital" again.

"I need to be here for my kids. That's my focus."

* An auction will be held at 7pm on May 12 at Auckland's Bayfield School to raise funds for Ms Hutchings. Donations can be made to the Kendall Hutchings Trust, c/- National Bank, Ponsonby.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY