Deb Mathews asks committee to review Avastin after meeting with Milton mother Kimm Fletcher. Alan Carter reports.
TORONTO – Kimm Fletcher met with the Health Minister Wednesday, once again asking the province to pay for her cancer drugs.
But despite her direct plea to Minister Matthews, the cancer-stricken Milton woman probably won’t get her wish any time soon. Matthews promised the drug, Avastin, would be reviewed again.
The province’s committee to evaluate drugs has twice reviewed Avastin, and concluded the drug “has not been proven to improve survival,” Mathews said during Question Period Wednesday.
Following her meeting with Fletcher, Matthews said she’ll ensure the committee has “the most recent evidence and they have reviewed the most recent evidence.”
But Fletcher was visibly upset following the meeting.
“Obviously I hoped for better news and a better outcome from it,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park. “At this point I’ve been told it can’t be done but obviously we’re going to continue on going because we can’t give up.”
Fletcher, 41, has been battling cancer since 2010. It went into remission but came back as stage three, then stage four brain cancer in September. She’s hoping Avastin can extend her life so she can spend more time with her two young children, son Keidon, 9, and daughter Martie, 7.
“Six months to a year and a half is so much better than two months. It will allow me to be with my family and give my kids some positive memories instead of just seeing me in bed,” she said. “I can be up and active, even if it’s just for the last year and a half of my life.”
The drug costs approximately $4,300 per treatment and Fletcher has been able to receive several treatments through donations. She gets the drug through an IV drip at a Burlington clinic. Her next treatment is Thursday.
“I can tell you it’s improved with just one treatment, from being bed-bound to being able to walk my daughter to and from school the next day,” she said, adding that the drug also improved the paralysis she’s felt on her left side.
She was denied coverage through her private insurance but the pharmaceutical company has agreed to reduce the cost of the drug by 20 per cent.
Through fundraising she’s raised approximately $40,000.
While Ontario’s committee to evaluate drugs concluded twice that Avastin “does not improve survival,” other provinces – British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – have concluded otherwise, and cover it.
Mathews maintains she’s not able to independently approve the drug for Fletcher without breaking the law.
“I think the law is the right law, I think these decisions should be made by experts. I do not think these decisions should be made by politicians,” she said.
PC Health Critic Christine Elliot though thinks otherwise and claims “there is a way for this to be funded without breaking the law and the minister has the ability to do that.”
– With files from Alan Carter
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