There are medicines available that can be life saving (or at least life extending), but as this story shows they can also be horrifically expensive.
Having comprehensive medical insurance means that you could have access to these drugs without having to work a 2nd job or start a fundraising page.
The High Cost of Living for Advanced Breast Cancer Patients
“It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month – a month of messages, fellowship and pink coloured fundraising. Often hidden behind the reminders for women to check their breasts for lumps and have regular mammograms are the stories of those for whom it is too late, whose greatest need now is life extending medication. Lindy Laird talks to Far North woman Donna MacMillan about the cost of buying a little more time.
The drug she needs to keep her alive just that precious while longer is costing this mother of three nearly $6000 a month, because the government drug buying agency Pharmac will not subsidise it.
That means MacMillan and her husband Ewan have to work two jobs each to cover the cost.
”It’s running us ragged,” she says, juggling our interview time with work as health and safety co-ordinator for Far North Roading.”