2023-04-29 14:05:37
Vanessa Vanderheyden, 48, receives us in her kitchen. On the table, she shows us the medications she takes every day to fight the pain: ” There is medications to prevent stomach pain, morphine patches, painkillers, anti-inflammatories. Without all of that, I couldn’t. I need all that to not hurt. “
His daily life becomes more and more difficult. She lost a lot of weight, she walks painfully. Because her bile duct cancer is progressing. And his oncologist no longer sees a treatment that could work: “We have been fighting this disease for 4 years”, explains Dr. Maryam Bourhaba. “We’ve already exhausted all of our treatments. And thanks to the strength of the patient, she is still with us.”
There is only one option left: to use a drug developed by the French pharmaceutical firm Servier. But this drug is still in the testing phase. He will begin its phase 3B, the last phase. As a result, he is not yet reimbursed by social security in Belgium. And it is expensive: “We no longer have time to wait, the disease is progressing much too quickly now. So we paid the 16,700 euros”, explains Vanessa. 16,700 euros for a single month of treatment. It’s a high price and yet, the firm has agreed to provide it to him at half price!
What is difficult for Vanessa to accept is that this same drug is already reimbursed in France: “In France, they are satisfied with 2 phases out of 3 validated. In Belgium, the 3 complete phases are necessary. And since this is not yet the case, there is no agreement with the pharmaceutical firm. “
To manage to collect the amount for the first month of treatment, the children and the close relations of Vanessa organized evenings, concerts. They also created a page Facebook” please help us look after our mum” and launched a kitty. But finding 16,700 euros each month is a terrible challenge. Vanessa, however, refuses to give up. “I’m not saying that this medicine can save me, but it can prolong my life. It’s complicated to think that something is there and I can’t have it.”
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