Two-tier system failing patients, says cancer society

The Irish Cancer Society has said Ireland's two-tier health system is failing public cancer patients, who are not getting the same potentially life-saving cancer treatments as those being treated in private hospitals.

Private patients have swift access to European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved anti-cancer drugs, the charity said.

However public patients must wait on average two years to find out if they will get access to the same drugs, the ICS added.

University Hospital Galway consultant medical oncologist Dr Michael McCarthy said that around 30-40% of new groundbreaking EMA-approved cancer drugs available in private hospitals are not available to public patients here now.

He said that for a cancer drug to be available to all patients, it must be approved by the HSE and made available through Ireland's drug reimbursement scheme, a process he said that takes on average two years.

Dr McCarthy said that in his specialty of head and neck and gynaecological cancers, there are now six cancer treatments that he cannot prescribe to his public patients, which are available to private patients.

Increasingly the first thing he asks a cancer patient is whether they have health insurance, he said.

Dr McCarthy has urged the next government to fully fund the National Cancer Strategy on a multi-annual basis and improve access to new, ground-breaking treatments.

The HSE is responsible for decisions on whether new drug treatments should be covered.

It asks the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics to advise on whether a new drug is effective, safe and value for money.

Recently the centre's Clinical Director, Professor Michael Barry, said many new drugs, in particular cancer drugs, were not value for money for the HSE.

He added that many of the delays in approving funding for new drugs are delays by the manufacturers in supplying the documents required for the health technology assessment (HTA), not delays on the part of the HSE, or the HTA process.