Asbestos worker paying for drug
Updated on 03 December 2007
A former dockyard worker with asbestos-related cancer faces spending his life savings on a drug he wants to be made available on the NHS.
Victor Lamb, 66, from Whitsand Bay, east Cornwall, who worked with asbestos while a teenage Devonport dockyard apprentice carpenter, was diagnosed with mesothelioma four months ago.
Mr Lamb is paying £12,000 for three 3-week sessions of the treatment drug Alimta - the sum he received from the Ministry of Defence in 2004 for lung scars associated with asbestos exposure, and linked to an increased risk of mesothelioma..
He is paying for the drug because it was not available on the NHS - and faces finding thousands more.
Daughter Kelly-Jane Lamb, 35, from Torpoint, east Cornwall, said her parents faced using their retirement savings for more sessions if a scan showed Alimta was making a difference to his condition.
"If the worst comes to the worst they may have to sell their home and move in with me, but hopefully that will not have to happen," she said, adding that the Freemasons, to which her father belonged, were going to provide some funding.
"Our main aim is to get the drug released for the benefit of other people," she said. "When people are diagnosed they should get it straight away.The time factor can make all the difference."
A Cornwall Primary Care Trust spokesman said the drug was not routinely funded as it had not yet been recommended for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
But a review panel would make a decision on funding it in Mr Lamb's case, following a letter from a cancer consultant at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth on the pensioner's behalf. Mr Lamb, who lives with his 66 year old wife Carol, told the Plymouth Evening Herald: "It may be too late for me but I want to raise awareness so maybe other people can get this drug."
A spokesman for Nice said the Department of Health had said it was not acceptable for primary care trusts to use the absence of Nice guidance as an excuse not to prescribe.
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