Disgraceful to deny life-prolonging drugs

My late husband (Edward Harper, the composer) developed cancer of the liver in 2005. He was initially given chemotherapy to reduce the tumours, aiming for a later possible liver resection. The chemo worked partially but not sufficiently well in the doctor’s opinion to warrant surgery, and we were told that there was no way he could be granted the operation, and basically that was the end of the treatment. The outlook was very bad indeed, although he felt fine, and had had a minimum of side-effects. We got little support from the NHS.

By chance, I discovered two drugs on the internet, Erbitux and Avastin, which were not available in Britain, but were widely used abroad – especially Vienna, where I had lived for many years. Edward was immediately put on to a rigorous course of chemo, and we were travelling to and from Vienna every week. The tumours shrunk so much that not only did he have a massive liver resection, from a world-renowned Austrian surgeon, he was “tumour free” for about six months, and was in that time able to write some of his greatest compositions and able to have a good quality of life.

The cancer unfortunately did return, and we continued to have treatment in Vienna. He died peacefully in April 2009, after having been taken into hospital two days beforehand. We were lucky: we had the contacts and the finances to grant Edward a good two to three years grace. Frank Searle does not have this choice. Many many people do not have this choice. To be given an extra couple of months is all many terminally ill people would hope for, and for patients to be denied this request is utterly disgraceful, especially in light of the corporate lunacy which has already seen vast sums of money being wasted on the ‘terminally ill’ Edinburgh trams project.

Louise Harper, Edinburgh