Costly drugs anger cancer patients

Chemotherapy and cancer drug costs are hitting Australians hard. Source: News Limited

CONSUMER groups have hit out at chemists who are charging more for chemotherapy drugs and who are threatening to cut services while they push for a $65 million taxpayer handout to prop up ailing cancer services.

Cancer Voices NSW and the Consumers Health Forum have told a Senate Committee they "object to the tactic whereby patients' access to treatment is used as a bargaining tool".

"CHF has significant concerns about the way some stakeholders have effectively sought to hold the government to ransom by threatening the withdrawal of services and the imposition of high out of pocket costs for consumers," the forum says in its submission.

However, newly formed cancer group Canspeak which is behind the chemists campaign, warns without government action "ultimately the costs of continuing to provide chemotherapy services will be passed onto the patient and their family".

It comes as one of the front men of the chemotherapy campaign, oncologist Dr John Bashford, has confirmed he owns 234,545 shares in a company that provides cancer treatment that would benefit financially from any increased government spending on chemotherapy medicines.

"I recognise there is a perceived conflict of interest but my personal holdings are very small," he told News Limited.

The less than one per cent shareholding was required as part of a business partnership with the company that employs him - Integrated Clinical Oncology Network.

ICON operates six private cancer clinics that provide chemotherapy and include pharmacies as part of the business.

Dr Bashford says he tells patients about the shareholding he has in the hospitals they are treated in "if asked" and that his role in the campaign was representing cancer physicians who had legitimate concerns about government cutbacks to chemotherapy funding.

In December the government slashed by 70 per cent the amount it pays for a chemotherapy drug Docetaxal after it discovered it had been paying $2,800 per dose too much for the drug for years, further cuts take effect next month.Chemists admit they were overpaid but claim they used the extra funds to subsidise the high cost of safely preparing doses of chemotherapy drugs for patients which costs $180.

Many private hospitals which provide 60 per cent of cancer treatment have told the Senate inquiry they are losing money on their cancer services after the cuts.The Sydney Adventist Hospital says the cutbacks will cost it $1.6 million in government funding by the end of this year.

The Wesley Hospital in Brisbane which treats 9,000 cancer patients a year says it now makes a loss on cancer services and this will result in a shift of patients to the already overlaoded public system.

Epworth Healthcare which provides 17,000 cancer services in Melbourne says it cannot absorb the losses from chemotherapry and the solution cannot be to shift all private services back onto the already stretched public system.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said oncology pharmacists are paid $77 in professional fees plus markups for the dispensing of chemotherapy medicines, compared to $6.52 for a standard PBS script.

The government has been in ongoing discussions with the Pharmacy Guild, with a view to achieving a resolution of this issue, and a focus on the sustainability of services for patients with cancer, the spokesman said.

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