Defying the odds on beating cancer
‘‘I had a scan on Friday and allmy tumours have shrunk by 20 per cent.’’
Helen Kelly
Just shy of one year ago former union boss Helen Kelly was given 61⁄2 weeks to live.
At the time Kelly was president of the Council of Trade Unions and she was warned only half of the patients diagnosed with terminal lung cancer with her side-effects, including a heart condition, lasted longer than two months.
While Kelly has defied the odds, she says she’s not been feeling great lately.
‘‘I’m spewing a lot and other things at the moment.’’
She’s having chemotherapy every three weeks and is due to have more on Thursday – the anniversary of her diagnosis.
She doesn’t normally feel this ill at this point in her treatment.
‘‘I seem to have some infection from the last lot I had.
‘‘I had a scan on Friday and all my tumours have shrunk by 20 per cent, so that’s great, it’s better than the other way round.
‘‘But it doesn’t cure me, it just gives me time . . . I don’t know what the prognosis is now, but it’s still death and it’s still months.’’
Kelly continues to source cannabis illegally while she awaits the outcome of her application to the Ministry of Health for medicinal cannabis. Her application has been deferred while the ministry waits for more information from her oncologist.
But Kelly says she’s been asked to provide things she doesn’t have access to, and the ministry should be stepping up and helping source information.
‘‘I’ll try and find the information they want and see whether that goes through and, if it doesn’t, then I don’t know what I’m going to do.’’
The particular product Kelly is trying to access is Bloom Farmers Highlighter Sativa and Indica cannabis oil inhalers.
Currently the only approved medicinal cannabis in New Zealand is Sativex, which can be signed off by the ministry. Any other product has to be approved by Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne.
As of January 27, the ministry had received 120 applications for medicinal cannabis, of which 105 have been approved.
Another five are still in progress and 10 have not been granted for various reasons including the application being withdrawn, cancelled, declined or incomplete.
Kelly said the ministry has suggested she applies for Sativex but she’s not convinced the product would suit her needs because it doesn’t have the high cannabidiol that she requires.
Dunne said he was told by the ministry a day after the application was received that it had ‘‘insufficient information for [the ministry] to be able to assess the product and make a recommendation’’.
Rather than decline the application, Dunne asked the ministry to go back to Kelly’s oncologist and get the information needed. Despite numerous attempts to contact the oncologist, it was 10 days before the ministry heard back from him.
‘‘The application has therefore been deferred, not declined, by the ministry, until it receives the information it had requested.
‘‘The delay in resolving this case, rests, for whatever reason, with the oncologist’s ongoing lack of response.’’