A TAMWORTH cancer sufferer has called on the next state government to end unfair costs for life-saving treatment.
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NSW and ACT are the only states where cancer patients can be forced to pay for their chemotherapy treatment in public hospitals.
Patients are often lumped with a co-payment of up to $180 for their first round of chemotherapy.
Tamworth man Luke Hannaford, 19, was undergoing chemotherapy for three months last year after a cancerous tumour was discovered in his abdomen, 10 years after he had already battled brain cancer as a child.
Each month involved three weeks of chemotherapy at Tamworth’s North West Cancer Centre and one week in Newcastle.
In Newcastle, Mr Hannaford didn’t have to pay for treatment.
In Tamworth, he did.
Mr Hannaford has just completed a boilermaker apprenticeship, but he had to take several days off work for treatment and chemotherapy costs put strain on his finances. It is a burden his counterparts in other states would not have to bear.
“It was a bit hard on apprentice wages,” he said. “It’s not fair.”
His mother, Leanne Hannaford, estimated the cost at $90 a week without concessions.
She said the cost disparity between states, and between different care centres within NSW, needed to end.
“There’s one rule for that person, and another for someone else. It should be the same for everybody,” she said.
Mr Hannaford is trialling a drug and not undergoing chemotherapy at present, but if an MRI scan in a fortnight’s time reveals the drug is not working, he may need to try chemotherapy again.
Tamworth’s Cancer Council NSW community programs co-ordinator Shaen Fraser said the issue of co-payments urgently needed to be addressed.
While some hospitals were able to reduce costs for patients, the current state of affairs made for an “unfair, inequitable” system, she said.
She said NSW had a backwards approach compared to other states.
“All NSW residents are suffering because of that and we call on the next NSW government to fix this.”
“It’s about a fairer system.”
She said more than 37,000 people in NSW were diagnosed with cancer every year and the vast majority required chemotherapy in public hospitals.
NSW health minister Jillian Skinner did not comment on the cost
disparity within the state and the nation but said recent changes had already “dramatically reduced the costs for cancer patients needing multiple treatment cycles”.
“Since 2013, chemotherapy patients in NSW no longer pay $150-$400 drug costs per cycle,” Ms Skinner said.
She said outpatients pay a one-off PBS co-payment for each original prescription for chemotherapy medicines at a cost of $36.90, or $6 concession.