Kidney Cancer Support Group Oxford 09-Sep-09
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Rally The Troops
In the light of the recent disgraceful decision by NICE to deny us any of our remaining kidney cancer drugs due to cost it is now time to launch a new campaign.
- Oncologists are now only able to offer one of the four drugs, Sutent (sunitinib) for 1st line treatment only. They will be unable to treat us with any of the other new drugs if Sutent cannot be tolerated or stops working. They will not be able to offer sequential treatment when necessary as seen in other countries.
- Unlike other cancer types we have no alternative effective treatment available to us.
- Why do we not have access to these drugs as they do in Wales?
- What happened to the recent promise made by the last Health Secretary to be more flexible towards EOL drugs/treatments?
- NICE was introduced by this government as a rationing body. Why does the QALY figure remain at the same level as it was in 1999 when NICE was introduced with no increase to account for inflation?
- Why has £1.75 BILLION of taxpayers’ investment not been spent on patients but carried forward as a surplus by the NHS whilst patients are being denied life-extending drugs?
- Why does this country still linger near the bottom of the EU cancer five-year survival tables?
- Most of us have paid a lifetime of taxes into the NHS and have therefore more than paid for our healthcare costs. The investment into the NHS has been huge but I wonder what proportion has been allocated to cancer treatment compared with the rest of the EU countries?
- There appears to be little point in all the research that takes place into cancer drugs. I can see that a time may come when drug companies will forsake this country and move vital trials elsewhere. Only the wealthy will be able to afford effective treatment for cancer.
- As you will know there is a huge debate going on in the US at the moment, as Obama is trying to introduce an NHS type of healthcare system. The US citizens are split on the issue. Some take the view that if they also have a rationing body like NICE thrust upon them then they too may have to share the same dreadful fate as many of our fellow kidney cancer patients. It is no secret that many kidney cancer patients have been left to die early having been denied access to the latest life-extending drugs/treatments.
Now is the time for action. We already have a good deal of people sympathetic to our desperate plight and we need to build on this to maintain momentum.
I am now asking you all for your support to launch a letter writing/email campaign in the first instance. Therefore, I shall be grateful if you will please email me privately via the Members section on Kidney Cancer Support Network Forum(www.kidneycancersupportnetwork.co.uk) to indicate your support for another campaign under the banner of Justice for Kidney Cancer Patients. I hope that I can count on all of you as we must press for a successful outcome before it is too late for us and for the generations to come. I look forward to hearing from you and of course welcome your own ideas by way of contribution to planning our future strategy.
We all have a Right to Life!
Clive Stone
Founder - Justice for Kidney Cancer Patients
9th September 2009
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