By Madilyn McKinley, originally published in the Border Mail
Only weeks ago, Tabitha Triplett was enjoying her usual weekends with her partner and children.
But a hospital admission after some unusual medical symptoms led to a diagnosis that turned her world upside down.
She was diagnosed with stage 2B cervical cancer, with a five-centimetre tumour on her cervix that grew in less than 10 months, and has been told it is aggressive.
The mother described the month between her diagnosis and the beginning of her treatment on 15 July as a “rollercoaster”.
“I don’t think I have had a chance to process it properly, it’s all just been too quick,” she said.
The Wodonga woman has to have six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as immunotherapy, which can all be done at the Albury Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre. She will also have a minimum of three sessions of brachytherapy in Melbourne.
Shock at cost
But when told about the costs associated with her treatment, she was shocked to hear she would have to pay $61,824.
The cost is for immunotherapy, a treatment that goes for 14 months, an option Ms Triplett has decided to take for the best hope of being cured.
“It is optional; for me, I don’t see it as optional if it has any chance of improving my odds, and I am absolutely going to do everything I can to make it happen,” she said.
The office manager has to pay $3,000 upfront initially for each treatment, which will happen once every three weeks in the beginning stages before the cost rises to $6,000 for each treatment towards the end of the plan.
She felt confused when she was told of the cost.
“I had lived my entire life thinking how lucky we were to live in Australia and have an amazing healthcare system,” she said.
“I had gone into the appointment worried about covering the costs of my loss of wage, which was daunting enough; I was completely blindsided and overwhelmed when I found out that covering the loss of wages was actually nothing compared to the treatment cost.”
Her oncologist, Dr Christopher Steer of the Border Cancer Hospital, had tried to get her funding on compassionate grounds, but was unsuccessful.
She said the financial burden extended further than raising more than $60,000 for the treatment, as there was also a high possibility she would not be able to work during and immediately following the treatment.
“I also need to cover costs associated with having a portion of the treatment completed in Melbourne, [such as] travel and accommodation,” she said.
More for early stage
As Ms Triplett’s cancer isn’t recurrent or metastatic, immunotherapy treatment is generally not covered on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
She has been advised that her treatment has been approved to the PBS, but it could take months before it is added.
Rare Cancers Australia chief executive Christine Cockburn said there were many people who were accessing the same treatment as Ms Triplett, but instead paid $31 for each treatment.
“She’s paying $3,000,” Ms Cockburn said. “The way that things come onto the PBS is one disease, one cancer at a time, one medicine at a time. Unfortunately, it hasn’t come on to the market for Tabitha’s early-stage cervical cancer.”
She said cervical cancer screenings in Australia made diagnoses rare.
“To have an early-stage diagnosis like Tabitha means that the medicine is not listed here; in fact it is listed on the PBS, but she has to have an advanced cervical cancer,” she said.
“That means that Tabitha has to be sicker than what she is now and she has to be more likely to have a bad outcome to access that treatment for $31. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
She said immunotherapy was highly innovative and effective, but was expensive due to how long it took to develop.
“It works on the person’s own immune system and works across a lot of difference cancer types and it is curative, which has not always been the case for cancer treatments,” Ms Cockburn said.
Rare Cancers Australia has advocated for almost eight years for a broader recognition of the cancer types for which immunotherapy works.
“It’s surprising for a young, fit, healthy woman to be diagnosed with cancer at all, but the fact she is now being left out in the cold, regards to healthcare provision in Australia, is a terrible waste,” she said.
Ms Triplett has a fundraising page through Rare Cancers Australia.