What price her life?

Aug 24 2008 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

CANCER victim Maria Douglass is going to die sooner or later, so there’s really no point wasting tax payers’ money on her.

Drugs that could extend her life by up to two years cost £2400 a month, money that could be better spent elsewhere.

That’s the view taken by NICE — the National Institute for Clinical Excellence — which does the Government’s dirty work when it comes to justifying expenditure on drugs.

I wonder if someone from NICE could explain that decision to Maria’s eight-year-old son Joshua. Or her 18-year-old daughter Samantha. Or her husband John.

Come to think of it, I’d like them to explain it to me too.

Because I happen to think that £2400 a month to keep Maria alive is a bargain.

The 40-year-old, of Wrekenton, Gateshead, was diagnosed with bowel cancer last year and has since undergone chemotherapy sessions.

That treatment failed to get rid of the disease, but the drug Avastin — which Maria has been forced to fund herself — has succeeded in shrinking cancer nodules which had spread to her liver.

NICE was set up to end the so-called “postcode lottery” that resulted in drugs being prescribed to patients by some NHS trusts but refused by others. That system was clearly unworkable . . . but is a blanket ban on drugs deemed “not cost-effective” any fairer?

Surely a patient’s personal circumstances should come into the equation too? Harsh though it may be, I could at least begin to understand it if NICE argued that it was not cost effective to treat a terminally-ill 75-year-old with Avastin.

But a 40-year-old mum-of-two is an entirely different situation.

The number crunchers at NICE place far too much emphasis on cost and not nearly enough on the benefits of extending patients’ lives.

Avastin is one of four such drugs banned by the organisation because of cost, yet they are widely available in Europe and the US.

So, while there may no longer be a postcode lottery of cancer care in the UK, it still comes down to geography in the end.

Hundreds of thousands of people — many of whom brought illness on themselves through their lifestyles — qualify for NHS treatment.

We don’t deny them drugs . . . nor should we. But as a taxpayer, I know where I’d like my money to go.

Thanks to the generosity of others, Maria Douglass has raised around £29,000 to pay for the drug herself.

So, in the end, members of the public have funded her treatment. There are many more people just like Maria all over the UK . . . and thousands more raising cash for them.

No wonder NICE finds it so easy to deny them help.