British People Put Last: Not Enough Money for Liver Cancer Drugs But MPS Demand Bigger Interest Free Loans
By Mercia — The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is the Government’s drugs allocation body, has refused to fund a drug for patients with advanced liver cancer on “cost” grounds — while at the same time, Westminster MPs have demanded even larger interest-free taxpayer provided loans.
According to a NICE spokesman, the drug Nexavar, is too expensive for the NHS.Britain is the only country in Western Europe that does not provide this unique life extending drug to liver cancer patients, despite it being the only effective drug on the market.
Questions are also being asked as to why the Government is deliberately delaying the introduction of a £200 million budget to fund the provision of new drugs for patients afflicted with a range of cancers until well into next year.
It is speculated that the delay is part of the Government's plan to cut back on NHS spending by stealth, a covert policy that literally costs peoples' lives.
Meanwhile, whilst sick Britons are left “for nature to take its course,” the Government has no plans for reducing the £825 million currently being handed to India to help fund that country's health, education and space programmes.
The news from NICE may prove problematical for the Government in another respect.
Two years ago a failed Palestinian “asylum-seeker,” suffering from chronic liver disease, won a taxpayer funded appeal in the High Court for the right to receive free treatment for his condition from the NHS.
The decision had the additional “benefit” of confirming that other failed “asylum-seekers” — including thousands suffering from HIV — were also entitled to free treatment.
How NICE's recent decision to withhold funding will stand up in the face of the 2008 court ruling has yet to be tested.
In 2003, a daily newspaper reported that the “NHS is being overwhelmed by hundreds of AIDS sufferers from abroad”, but particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa.
At that time the claimed cost to the NHS was £15,000 per year per patient, meaning that the current cost per patient — which the NHS is legally required to meet — is likely to be in the region of £20,000 per annum.
Many find it absurd that there should be legal protection for foreigners in terms of free NHS health care provision where none exists for Britons.
Meanwhile, Britain's ever-grasping MPs have more important issues to wrestle with, not least of which is the vexed question of increased interest-free loans.
Following complaints from a number of greedy (but “Honourable”) Westminster hogs, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has agreed to allow MPs to claim a further £4000 in interest-free loans to fund “big-ticket” items on undefined “necessities” including, presumably, private health insurance.
The British National Party unashamedly advocates the view that the needs of Britons must come first, particularly in terms of health provision, and that until such time as the needs of our own people are met, taxpayers' money should not be expended on projects that neither serve the interests of this country nor its people.
