Young cervical cancer victim denied £7-a-day treatment - because it's 'too expensive'

A young mother undergoing treatment for cervical cancer has been denied anti-sickness tablets costing just £7 per day by her GP.

Amy Meehan has been receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy to shrink a tumour which doctors said was too large to be operated on.

But her weight plummeted to under seven stone because she was vomiting repeatedly as a side-effect of the gruelling treatment.

Her oncologist prescribed her the anti-nausea drug Ondansetron to combat the daily sickness bouts  -  but when she went to her GP for a repeat prescription, she was told it was too expensive.

Miss Meehan, who has a four-year-old daughter named Rachel, said she was told by the family doctor: 'Well, the thing with these tablets is they are very expensive  -  £71 for ten tablets  -  we don't normally prescribe these.'

The GP did reluctantly prescribe one course of the tablets, but told the 21-year-old she had to go back to oncologist Dr Jane Orton and explain they were too expensive and would not be prescribed again.

The single mother from Bradford had been told she had only a 40 per cent chance of survival when the cancer was diagnosed in March.

Commenting on the GP's reaction, she said: 'It was the first time I had been to any appointment on my own since being told I had cancer and might die.

'My mum had always been with me before. I felt angry and like I wasn't entitled to be asking for help to get better.'

She added: ' You would have thought a doctor would be more understanding but she just made me feel worthless.

'No more': The tablets cost £71 for ten

'I am speaking out to try and stop this happening to anyone else in this situation.

'I don't feel I will ever be able to trust a GP to do the right thing for me again.'

During her chemotherapy, Miss Meehan has had to have three blood transfusions and has been carried home from hospital because she was so weakened by the treatment.

She also suffered chest pains that made her fear she was having a heart attack.

But she has nothing but praise for the staff at St James's Hospital, in Leeds, who have been treating her.

She is still sick regularly, despite the chemotherapy course finishing six weeks ago.

However, the Ondansetron tablets have helped her regain some of the weight she lost when the nausea and vomiting were at their most severe.

She is due to undergo a scan in a few weeks time to assess the effects of the treatment on the tumour.

Meanwhile, she has changed to another GP surgery and is planning to complain about her doctor's refusal to prescribe her any more anti-sickness tablets on cost grounds.

Her 47-year-old mother, Janet Rollin, said: 'Amy's doctor looked at her the first day we went to hospital in Leeds and said, "I am going to do everything I can to make you better".

'If she didn't think Amy needed these tablets she wouldn't have prescribed them and told her to go back to her GP if she needed more. She never talked about money.

'The GP seems more interested in saving money than getting Amy better.'

Chris Rushton, practice manager at Ashcroft Surgery in Bradford where Miss Meehan saw the GP, declined to comment on the case and said no complaint had been received.