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Set up National Cancer Drugs Fund to give patients a new lease of life

MP SPEAKS | During the recent debates on cancer care in Parliament, the health minister and second finance minister agreed that prices of cancer medicine are sky-rocketing to the detriment of cancer patients.

Cancer patients have to fork out thousands of ringgit to secure access to these expensive medicine, on top of dealing with existing financial difficulties.

Some are forced to sell their homes, jewellery and other assets in order to purchase these medicine. Others see their lifetime savings deplete drastically or simply vanish.

In fact, as a result of financial constraints, families are making painful decisions to stop their children from going to school in order to take care of the parents.

It’s therefore clear that government intervention is crucial to address the financial ruin faced by these families.

In my parliamentary debates, I have asked the government to establish a National Cancer Medicines Fund to allow poor families to purchase cancer medicine at a cheaper cost.

And there are many in Malaysia who are in desperate need of such assistance.

Statistics show that one in nine women and one in ten men will suffer from cancer by the age of 75. And at least 100,000 Malaysians suffer from cancer at any given time, according to the Health Ministry. These numbers are predicted to increase by 54 percent by 2025 going by the current pattern.

Every year about 21,733 new cancer cases are recorded, based on the 2007 National Cancer Registry. And some 10,000 cases go unreported on a yearly basis.

Therefore, living with cancer is costly, resulting in a huge financial burden for many.

Universiti Malaya academic Dr Nirmala Bhoopathy suggests that treating breast cancer on a yearly basis is about RM65,000.

A separate study by iMoney shows that someone suffering from breast cancer in Malaysia needs RM395,000 to go through a complete treatment cycle.

The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney states that 39 percent of Malaysians simply cannot afford the costs of cancer medicines. And at least 19 percent have been forced to quit their treatment as they are unable to pay the medical bills.

I was informed by Hospis Kuala Lumpur that a colon cancer patient has to pay RM8,700 for 30 pills every month. And this cocktail of medicine has to be taken for 17 months or up to two years, depending on the gravity of the illness.

Yesterday in his winding-up speech, Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani shared similar concerns based on his experience in his constituency, Titiwangsa.

In fact, he proposed that there might be a need to engage all the insurance companies to provide an affordable coverage to support cancer patients.

It's therefore imminent that a National Cancer Medicines Fund is set up immediately.

The UK’s experience

Malaysia could model its National Cancer Medicines Fund on the UK’s experience with the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) project.

Since its inception in April 2011, at least 95,000 cancer patients have been given affordable medicines.

As a result, this programme’s allocation under the National Health Service (NHS) has been expanded to £340 million for this year from the original £200 million yearly amount 6 years ago.

But the UK project is far from a handout.

It has reduced prices of medicine as pharmaceutical companies have lowered the prices these medicines are sold at because people no longer buy from them at the premium rate.

Fourteen different types of cancer medicines have seen costs plummet and available to eligible patients.

Also, the CDF has vetted license applications from pharmaceutical companies intending to bring new medicines into the market for patenting.

If the independent committee finds a new medicine lacking in effectiveness and innovation, they will not make it available to patients and this saves both the government and patients costs.

The cancer patients in Malaysia could benefit from the UK experience.

And it will certainly go a long way to help support families and cancer patients to manage the disease.


CHARLES SANTIAGO is Member of Parliament, Klang.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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