PUBLIC HEALTH SECTOR
Provinces race to find money for cancer drug
Provinces are scrambling to find resources to fund Roche’s breast cancer drug trastuzumab after the health department approved a policy to provide it without securing additional funding. As a result, the Western Cape has opted not to provide the drug at this stage, saying to do so would mean depriving other patients of services. Provinces that are providing trastuzumab are having to reprioritise their budgets, in effect taking the money from other projects. "Trastuzumab use in the Western Cape has been extensively discussed in collaboration with experts within the oncology units and at present has not been approved for use in public-sector hospitals in the province," said Western Cape health department spokesman Mark van der Heever. "As the tertiary hospitals would need to absorb the cost within their current budget, [the] high acquisition cost with no additional allocated budget would mean cutting services from other indigent patients." The policy was launched in August 2017 by hea...
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