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Gary Russell with some of his colleagues who raised £14,000 for his cancer treatment |
TO GARY, THE GIFT OF HOPE
Workmates fork out £14,000 for cancer drug the NHS won’t buy
BATTLING cancer sufferer Gary Russell – who has been given months to live – got his best-ever Christmas present yesterday (Thursday) when workmates handed over a cheque for £14,000 to help pay for treatment.
Hundreds of colleagues raised the cash after reading in the Tribune how the 36-year-old father-of-four from Holloway has been refused life-saving drug treatment on the NHS.
Jane Nelson, managing director of Kier-Islington, where Mr Russell works as a surveyor, described him as a “brave fighter and an inspiration to the workforce”.
In a moving speech, Ms Nelson told a gathering of 130 work colleagues at the firm’s Brewery Road depot how, when Mr Russell first revealed he was ill with cancer, he had asked for no fuss.
“But Gary is a very popular bloke,” Ms Nelson added. “And his workmates were bound to find out. When they did there was no stopping them.”
It is more than a month since Mr Russell appealed to Islington Primary Care Trust to fund his treatment for advanced bowel cancer.
The PCT, in line with national health policy, has refused to pay for the new immunotherapy “wonder” drug Avastin, because it costs up to £100,000 a year.
This week’s £14,000 cheque from workmates – the first of many being planned – was the result of a series of fundraisers, including a sponsored cycle ride, football match and pub race night.
After receiving the cheque, Mr Russell said how moved he was by the show of support.
“It is difficult to know what to say,” he told colleagues at the firm, which maintains all Islington Council properties. “You have all been very generous and I’m very, very grateful.”
With treatment bills of up to £4,000 to meet every fortnight, Mr Russell’s parents, Margaret and David, have handed over £80,000 after they remortgaged their £350,000 house on the Andover estate in Finsbury Park.
Mr Russell could die within months unless he receives the drug but the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence ruled in January that local health care trusts should not make it available on the NHS because it was “not cost-effective”.
Speaking about his current condition, Mr Russell said there was good and bad news. “The drug worked where they thought it would,” he added. “All my lymph nodes are clear of cancer. However, they have found the cancer in the bone has got a little bit bigger.
“I’ve been chasing the PCT up and they finally got back to me last Monday. They wanted more answers from my oncologist. I’m not very optimistic that the PCT are going to fund me. I think they are looking for any excuse not to.”
Avastin works by attacking the blood vessels which feed a tumour, thereby starving it of nutrients and causing it to shrink.
Current research suggests that one in nine patients has been cleared of cancer, even when it has spread to the liver, through a combination of the drug and chemotherapy.
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