Want to buy medicine at the hospitals – the newspaper Bergens Tidende

– Cancer patients should get to get to his regular hospital doctor and be treated with the medication they buy with their own money, says the Secretary General of the Cancer Society.

The expensive cancer medicines were subjects in health debate at Litteraturhuset Monday night.

BT and other media have in recent weeks told about the new immune preparations are medically approved but not yet cleared for use in Norwegian hospitals.

Meanwhile, people flock to two private clinics, where treatment can be purchased for 100,000 crowns a month.

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– People should not have to go to Aleris Oslo for this treatment. Instead they should charge for medication and take it to their regular doctor at Haukeland, says Anne Lise Ryel, Secretary General of the Cancer Society.

– Your regular doctor knows your medical history and know what you can tolerate and not tolerate, points out Ryel.

Ryel get a nod from Lars A. Akslen, cancer researcher at the Centre for biomarkers (CCBIO) at UiB and Haukeland University Hospital.

Asked by BT says Akslen that he is positive to the input from the Cancer Society.

– Now do not treat I patients themselves, but many colleagues would probably set positively to this, he said.

– Packet Flow for bureaucrats

Today there Decision Forum that says yes or no to introducing new drugs and methods at Norwegian hospitals. In Decision Forum has the directors of the four health regions to vote.

This fall Decision Forum twice said no to PD1 inhibitor nivolumab of lung cancer patients with metastatic disease, before Medicines Agency has assessed the impact on the price. Probably, it takes up to six months before the case is back in Decision Forum.

• Decision Forum, where the directors of the regional health authorities meet, has twice refused to introduce immune preparation nivolumab against lung cancer with metastasis, before the impact is assessed against the award. 3000 Norwegians get lung cancer each year, 2,000 die from the disease.
• Nivolumab is one of several new so-called PD1 inhibitors, which helps the body’s immune system to fight the cancer and shows promise results. Median patient live three months longer and fifth are alive two years after starting treatment.
• More PD1 inhibitors and other immune preparations are underway for several types of cancer.
• In a note to Decision Forum says that the new PD1 inhibitors can cost Norwegian hospital 2.5 to 3 billion a year if given to 3,000 cancer patients a year. In Norway these costs PD1 inhibitors 1.1 million for a year’s treatment.

Akslen believes that several matters to discuss around the Decision Forum . One is the democratic issue, because the process is so closed until the decision is made.

The second is timeliness.

– Maybe we should introduce a package stream for health bureaucrats, says Akslen, with reference to the health bureaucrats have made strict deadlines for hospitals dealing with cancer patients.

Want cancer fund

Akslen and Ryel is also agreed that Norway should create a fund to finance expensive drugs in the intervening period from the medically approved to Decision Forum is finished decided.

– Such a fund would loose many of today’s problem issues, they say both.

For the protesting professor Ole Frithjof Norheim, former head of the Priorities Committee.

– In the UK there such a fund. It has blown the budget, says Norheim.

– Brenner for justice

The overarching theme of the debate was the health priorities in the future. Norheim oriented about mindset in Priorities The Commission’s proposal, while Professor Bertil Tungodden at NHH reminded that people are concerned with justice, not efficiency.

– Everyone will have an effective healthcare system with minimal bureaucracy and unnecessary treatment. The difficult discussions about justice and this is what people are passionate about, he said.