SDLP Health Spokesperson Mark H Durkan has said that the inequality of access to life-saving cancer drugs in Northern Ireland, exacerbated by the current political stalemate, is ‘despicable’. The MLA for Foyle said he will be writing to the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Health to ask what actions can be taken in the absence of an Assembly to ensure everything that can be done to guarantee equal access to cancer drugs is being done.
Durkan said: “It is totally inequitable and unacceptable that cancer patients in the North do not have the same level of access to vital medication as they do across the rest of these islands.
“Access to cancer drugs should not be based on cost but rather on patient need.
“It is even more frustrating that expenditure to remedy this issue, as well as the urgent need for the implementation of a cancer strategy, is being prevented in the absence of a Health Minister and a functioning Assembly,” he added.
