By Felix Walton of RNZ Cancer patients are dubious the Government will deliver on its promise to fund 13 new cancer drugs . Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has come under pressure to fund the drugs after they were absent from last week’s Budget announcement . Christchurch resident Vickie Hudson-Craig, who was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2020, said she was in disbelief when she saw the Budget last week.
“We were so sure [the funding] would be announced,” she said. Hudson-Craig spends more than $5000 a month on dabrafenib and trametinib, the drugs she needs to stay alive. “That mental stress of, even before you get up in the morning, not knowing where you’re going to find that money from and how long it’s going to last,” she said.
“To have it funded would have meant the stress would just disappear.” Luxon’s pledge to fulfil his promise “soon” was not good enough, she said. “To say ‘we’re going to announce something soon.
.. it’ll be this year, we don’t quite know when’ – it’s not good enough for people who are dying.
“Even if it was a timeframe where they said ‘it’ll be funded in November’ or whatever the timeframe was...
then at least we would know.” Tauranga-based lawyer Murray Denyer was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2017. Denyer said it was unfair for the Government to play with patients’ feelings.
“It’s stressful and hard enough living with a disease that’s likely to kill you...
only to have a potential life-ext.
