A life-prolonging cancer treatment that was denied to an RAF veteran has now been made available on the NHS – ten months after his death.
In October last year, Caerphilly Observer reported how RAF veteran Roy Bushen and wife Sandra were faced with the prospect of spending their £18,000 savings to pay for treatment to prolong Roy’s life.
Tragically, Roy, 75, of Trecenydd, passed away in December, but the Selective Internal Radiotherapy Treatment (SIRT), which could have treated his terminal liver cancer, has now been made available on the Welsh NHS.
Roy’s widow Sandra said it still upsets her that SIRT was denied to her husband of 52 years.
She said: “I just hope they do make it available and I hope they do it correctly. This ‘postcode lottery’ business is sickening.
“SIRT should have been ready for people anyway, not just for a select few. I think it is all wrong – we are all equal.”
Keen model-maker Roy was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2012 and it was during treatment that doctors discovered his terminal liver cancer.
SIRT could have prolonged his life, but this was unavailable in Wales at the time.
Last month, Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford announced that SIRT would now be available to patients in Wales.
Mr Bushen served in the RAF on Christmas Island in the 1950s while nuclear tests were being carried out and there have always been suspicions the cancer was linked.
Mrs Bushen said she will be continuing to help in the fight for families of veterans to be compensated.
Lindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales East and a friend of Mr Bushen, said: “I’m pleased that SIRT, denied to Roy, is now available to other patients on the NHS in Wales. It is disappointing it was not immediately available to Roy who served his country well. He did not get the treatment he deserved.
“Roy was one of thousands of men forced to watch nuclear weapons testing on Christmas Island in the 1950s and was exposed to radiation.
“It is important that these brave veterans are not forgotten.
“Even in his last days Roy told me that it was important to fight for others. He was a good man.”
This is the problem with socialist, 1950’s style health care. The amount of funding needed to effectively operate a large scale health service with the accompanying managers at every level, departments dedicated to tick-boxing and waiting times of a reasonable length would be near double current funding.
The best thing for the NHS would be to privatise all hospitals, legally requiring them to operate certain services with the state providing some funding upfront to the hospitals and extra funding depending on the number of patients treated.
We see education system in Finland and Canada where large numbers of schools are fully privatised but the state still gives funding to the schools with the parents paying some fees on top. The result make private education accessible to more people. With fewer costs associated in the ownerships of school buildings, employing teachers, and operating the schools, per pupil funding at state schools increases. The education across the board improves as a result overtaking that of the UK. A similar system operating along the same principles needs to be adapted for the NHS in Britain.