A 50-year-old mother-of-two diagnosed with a rare form of cancer has “no case” for asking the NHS to pay for her potentially life-saving surgery, lawyers on behalf of a Welsh health board have said.
Maria Wallpott, from CaerphillySouth Wales was told she had stage four appendix cancer in April, which has since spread to her ovaries.
Despite NHS doctors, including a colorectal surgeon and oncology consultant, recommending a type of procedure they believe could extend her life and possibly save it, it was refused funding by a medical panel.
The panel turned down Ms Wallpott’s application for the surgery twice on grounds she does not meet the criteria, saying there is a lack of evidence to show it would benefit her and would therefore “not be cost-effective”.
so effectivley, these people are committing murder then?
The procedure, which costs £73,000 and involves flushing the abdomen with heated anti-cancer medications, is automatically available to patients in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but is only granted in exceptional circumstances in Wales.
It is said to give patients a 40% chance of living for five years.
She appears to be in the right and must be gutted but I can remember similar with my mum, admittedly in her 70’s … where her cancer had progressed that much (bowels, ovaries and fused to her pelvis) … that the doctors said any surgery was only available in the USA and would cost us the price of a house.
Morti, I really don’t think age should even factor in this. The NHS is supposed to save lives, not sit and think about whether its worth it or not. If its available elsewhere it should be in Wales too. And what other “exceptional circumstances” can there be, when you are going to actually die?
… and the clock is ticking away whilst she fights these legal cases.
She’d be better starting a GoFundMe page for the treatment… or moving to England. Doesn’t anyone who happens to be here have access to our NHS.
If I’m paying for health tourists from around the world I’d certainly find room for a Welsh lady first.
There’s something not quite right if backhander contracts worth millions can be handed out to mates of the government, or can be spent on a little used media room in No10, or…etc etc, or can be spent to imprison whole-life criminals, but a paltry £70k ish cannot be spent on saving someone’s life
Sadly this is what millions of people have voted for. We no longer have a NATIONAL Health Service, but a very fragmented, profit & brown envelope to party funds health service.
This is why NHS staff feel demoralised & are leaving. The staff shortage is not a shortage of staff able to do the job, but a shortage of staff willing to work in what currently exists.
If she was in her 70s or 80s then I could understand the decision but she is only 50 and there is a medical remedy. Seems appalling to me that she should have to take them to court in the first place. What sort of health system does that?
This is the price of having devolved administrations. Scotland and Wales run their own services, their own budgets. That’s why in Scotland you have free prescriptions in england we do not. But clearly they also have the right to decide what they will and will not fund.
It’s very sad because one of my BFFs had a sort of similar condition and is thankfully alive because she is living in England.
It’s not national where you have devolved administrations. Scoland Wales and NI have their own NHS. It’s not going to be equal because they make their own choices.
It is far less local than that. Every hospital area has multiple commissioning groups, which make independent decisions about what is & is not funded & worse still, each commissioning group draws large chunks of money out for their own feeding trough. So every hospital is making decisions about care for it’s area based upon multiple commissioning groups, so some treatments may be available to some of it’s patients & not others.
Are you sure it’s that fragmented in Wales? There’s a new health and social care act that nobody has been too fussed about and recently passed the commons vote. It will be interesting to see how the “integrated” future will deal with such cases in England.
My good friend has received excellent treatment from a specialised team. Diagnosed in 2014 and given 5 years maximum to live. It’s amazing that she lived to see one of her daughters marry and hold her first granddaughter. All because of NHS treatment for a very aggressive cancer. So in some places it clearly works well and I’m sure some members here would testify as they are around tell us because their cancers were cured.
Lack of evidence might be a reasonable excuse. But there is absolutely justification for the “not be cost-effective” comment. That should not be remotely be part of the equation…
“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.
Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.
Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.
May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”
Thus, the classical Oath of Hippocratic involves the triad of the physician the patient and God, while the revised version involves only the physician and the patient, reliving the Gods of a few responsibilities."
Ted, I must say that I really like that revised Hippocratic Oath. It is plainly written and easy to understand for everyone and, of course, now removes that unnecessary and possibly argumentative insertion of any reliance on, or influence of, any version of god.
I’ll copy that and keep it, simply out of interest.
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