Bitter twist in cancer drug fight

By Chris Saunderson

Published: 07 March, 2008

A MORAY cancer patient who had to fight to have drug treatment to prolong his life paid for by the NHS has been told the drug is no longer working.

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Mike Gray, from Buckie, has been told his cancer has spread, and he has now come off Cetuximab and plans to spend the time he has left with family and friends.

It was only at the end of January that Mr Gray, a manager with Hanover Housing in Elgin, and his wife, Tina McGeever, persuaded Grampian Health Board to pay for his £1,600- a-week drug treatment.

"The irony is that you fight for something, get it, and your next scan says it is not working, and that's the funding over," said Mr Gray.

The couple had been forced to turn to family and friends to finance his treatment privately last November when health bosses refused to pay for it through the NHS.

However, backed by his oncologist, Mr Gray made a plea to an exceptional circumstances committee of the health board which sanctioned retrospective funding for his drug treatment.

That enabled Mr Gray, who was first diagnosed with bowel cancer in March, 2006, and his wife to repay those who had given them money to pay for the drug.

The couple had in the meantime taken Mr Gray's case to the public petitions committee of the Scottish Parliament, and were invited to present evidence to the Parliament last month.

Tina had also launched an e-petition in protest at the anomaly of some health boards paying for the drug treatment while others refused to do so.

The health committee is set to investigate the situation across Scottish health boards.

Mr Gray (53) said the immediate future was now just about taking one day at a time.

"You don't die twice, so I have no yardstick as to how I will be," he said.

Confirmation from his oncologist that the drug was no longer working had not come as a great surprise.

"Before the scan I had become more than just tired, and was having difficulty walking and doing anything, to be honest. I half-expected it.

"I knew that one day the oncologist would say that to me, but selfishly you are hoping the drug is going to work for much longer," he added.

"I am off work just now, and my intention is to go back and clear my desk. I have been doing a little bit of work at home, but not a lot. I certainly couldn't sustain full-time work, I just don't have the energy."

His priority is spending time with wife Tina, artistic director with the Out of the Darkness Theatre Company, and "just living and doing the mundane things that couples do".

Mr Gray hopes to be fit enough to travel to Clydebank in the next few weeks to visit his 97-year-old mother-in-law, who is unable to travel north.

"All my other family and friends are able to come up and see me. I am very close to her, and hope to see her at some stage."

Mr Gray is pleased that his case has started a national debate on funding of drug treatment by health boards, not just for cancer patients, which is set to go on after his death.

"Irrespective of when I die, my family will go on with this," he said.

Mr Gray praised all the health professionals who have cared for him, particularly his oncologist and the staff at Seafield Hospital in Buckie.

c.saunderson@northern-scot.co.uk