Posted by Michael Wonder on 18 Oct 2018
Northland mum Alethea Nathan with lung cancer pleads for publicly-funded medicine
19 October 2018 - Alethea Nathan has lung cancer, she is relying on her Life Insurance payout to cover the high costs for the drugs she needs and hopes more affordable options are on the horizon.
A Northland mother forking out $7,500 every three weeks for lung cancer treatment is pleading with PHARMAC to publicly fund the drugs for the killer disease and stop needless deaths.
Alethea Nathan, 39, from Whangārei is undergoing chemotherapy which is publicly funded and immunotherapy which is not and said it was terrible patients in a developed country were made to fund their own treatment.
She is paying for the drug atezolizumab, an intravenous injection, which is one of six lung cancer treatment drugs the Lung Foundation New Zealand is calling on PHARMAC to fund.
