Alliance Health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw MLA is to deliver a petition to the Assembly demanding equal access to cancer drugs for people in Northern Ireland.

The petition, which currently has over 10,200 signatures, calls for the same access to life-saving drugs for people here as for those in England and will be handed to the speaker on Monday (September 19).

“We pay the same taxes and national insurance, and yet when the time comes to use the services we pay for, we find we are deliberately disadvantaged purely because of where we live. It is unequal and it is unjust,” said Ms Bradshaw.

“Let us not be diverted by some sort of notion this is about money. We regularly find tens of millions to pump into the system in different areas before elections. The funding required for vital drugs is but a drop in the ocean of the overall health budget and could be found if the will existed.

“There has been a change of approach in England and there must now be a change of approach in Northern Ireland – to engage with the National Institute of Clinical Excellence so people here have exactly the same access to vital drugs as those elsewhere in the UK.”

Bradshaw to deliver petition for equal access to cancer drugs

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