NZ: SDHB slated for hep C stand

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This is a very interesting article about taking generics and how to get monitored and pay for it. In Canada, we are finding workarounds, but it is not easy! (CD)

A Dunedin Hospital staff member has criticised her employer, the Southern District Health Board, for refusing medical support for hepatitis C sufferers who are legally importing life-changing drugs.

Tina Hill, an anaesthetic technician, cured herself of the disease a year ago by purchasing a generic drug from overseas through a route that has become highly publicised among sufferers.

Ms Hill said 50 Dunedin sufferers had imported the generics, and were being ”charged through the nose” for private medical support. The imported generics cost as little as $1500, a fraction of the $84,000 to purchase them at home.

Close monitoring is required during the treatment period, and the patient needs a local prescription to import the drug. For the prescription consultation alone, some patients in Dunedin had paid $1000, Ms Hill said. Hepatitis C generics were a boon rather than a burden, for the public health system, as it ended up saving the system millions of dollars, she said. Without a cure, some patients would end up needing a liver transplant.

”If you get rid of hepatitis C, it’s actually like a cure for cancer, because hepatitis C is the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma.”