MP speaks of family’s cancer heartache in Parliamentary debate
A Wearside MP has spoke of her family’s heartache over breast cancer in an emotive Parliamentary debate.
Sharon Hodgson, Shadow Public Health Secretary, spoke of the pain of seeing her mother-in-law die from the disease 20 years ago.
Her comments came in a debate in which fellow Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh said women suffering from breast cancer “are having their lives shortened in front of their eyes” by the decision to withdraw a pioneering treatment from the NHS.
The Mitcham and Morden MP said it was a “tragedy” that women would no longer have access to Kadcyla, which can give women dying from an aggressive form of breast cancer extra months of life.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) published final draft guidance late last year, saying Kadcyla was not set at an affordable price.
The drug will be removed from the NHS in June, though the decision has prompted a fierce backlash from breast cancer sufferers and campaign groups.
Ms McDonagh led a backbench debate on the issue in the Commons calling on Nice to rethink the decision.
Mrs Hodgson, MP for Washington and Sunderland West, said: “Even if measured in months, those months are surely priceless to the women and families involved.
“I speak here from personal experience as I also lost my mother-in-law to secondary breast cancer 20 years ago this year, when my children were very, very small.
“I know she fought for every extra week and day in the end, and she would have given anything for an extra six months to spend with all of her grandchildren for that little bit longer. We all wanted that for her.”