Sunday, 1st November 2009
Amputee must pay €200 per month for medicine
Sonia Camilleri, 44, has to pay €200 a month for pain killers after her leg was amputated.
A woman who lost her leg to cancer must pay €200 a month from her own pocket for medicines that she will need for the rest of her life.
Sonia Camilleri, a 44-year-old mother-of-two, has to take phantom pain killers to remove the sensations in her right leg, which was amputated last April after she was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer.
"Sometimes I get pins and needles or pain in my knee, or even itching. It feels like my leg is still there," she said.
Moreover, these feelings can give her a false sense of security if she tries to use her leg, making the pain killers a necessity.
But Ms Camilleri was shocked to discover, after surgery in the UK, that she had to pay €95 every two weeks, apart from having to buy several other drugs which she needs for a short time.
"I do not mind having to pay for medicines which I will only need for now, but I am going to need the painkillers for the rest of my life, and I do not know whether I will be able to afford them in future," she said.
Ms Camilleri had to give up her job as a sales assistant and now relies on her husband's salary. Her trauma started on February 14, when after a Valentine's Day dinner with her husband, two children and their partners, she started feeling a throbbing pain to the left of her abdomen.
"I do not normally make a fuss, but I was so scared that I went to hospital," she said.
After waiting five hours at the Emergency Department, Ms Camilleri was seen by a doctor, who assured her that everything was fine after examining her and ordering an X-ray.
When the pain persisted, moving towards the middle of her abdomen and even affecting her ability to walk, Ms Camilleri took some blood tests, which also came up negative.
However, she was soon to discover that the original X-ray had revealed a lesion on her pelvis. A radiologist ordered a CT scan, which showed a tumour wrapped around her pelvic bone and right thigh.
It was then that Ms Camilleri was told she needed to go abroad for surgery, and although the word amputation was mentioned, she was not told she was going to lose her leg.
"The doctor told me that the tumour was localised and had not spread. In that panic I kept thinking that I wanted to live, even if it meant losing my leg," she said.
"I was praying for God to take my leg and keep me alive. I wanted to live for my children and my husband," she said, bursting into tears.
In April, days after her 44th birthday, Ms Camilleri flew to the UK's Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital with her husband and sister for the five-hour operation that removed her right leg, including her hip bone.
After six weeks at the UK hospital, she returned to Malta in June but was disappointed to find out that the drugs she required were not free.
According to a spokesman for the Health Parliamentary Secretariat, malignancy is included in the Schedule V, the list of conditions that entitles patients to free medicines. However, amputation, for which Ms Camilleri needs the pills, is not listed on this schedule, leading to confusion. "After the entire trauma, and having accepted losing my leg, it was a big blow to find out I have to pay for the pills," she said.
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Comments
Can you please elucidate us what will happen when insurances go bankrupt like they did in the UK and elsewhere?
To save you the trouble, everyone lost their money that they had paid and in the case of pensions also their pensions. Would you like to end up in this situation? I don't.
As long as the government continues to collect taxes, one cannot logically claim that hospital services are free.
You are right probably nobody paid for health service at Mater Dei. BUT.. last September my wife was reffered to a specialist at Mater Dei Hospital because of acute pain. They gave her an appointment for November 2010... yes 1 year two months. So we went to see this Professor at his private clinic only few days after and we paid €50. At the end of the appointment he told my wife to go and see him again at Mater Dei so he can check the files there. This was on a Monday and he set this appointment at Mater Dei for Wedenesday. So how come when my wife asked at Mater Dei that the first available appointment was 26 months later with thsi Professor, and because we gave him €50 he could se her in two days at the Mater Dei, Well Mr Muscat ofcourse I paid at Mater Dei and very costly too. What if I didnæt afford €50? Then my wife would have to live in pain for over a year without knowing what is wrong with her. SHAME!!!!!
Totally agree with you.
To those who are asking where is the private health fund the majority of Maltese citizens are not making ends meet so how and why should they pay for such a fund especially pensioners when they have paid taxes all their lives?
And what happens when private health funds go bust like what happened with private pensions?
Charles Muscat
My wife had to go to Mater Dei and we had to buy the required medicine, so don't think that everything is given free.
Due to the prevailing situation at Mater Dei people also visit their specialists privately so that they jump the queue. Do you think that this is a good situation when people cannot afford to make ends meet? By the way, doctors and specialists do not give a receipt as they have been exempted from doing so by Gonzipn while the the corner grocer owner will be dragged to court and fined if he doesn't issue a receipt for a few euro cents.
As for this patient, I am more than sure that she can be supplied with the generic version for gabapentin, Pfizer itself manufactures it, as well as Teva. The generic will cost far less, and work just the same.
“You have free hospital service which hardly exist in the modern world.” – our hospital isn’t free and I can prove it, just ask the many patients whom have to visit their specialist privately, paying good money, just to have their results 6 months earlier!
And our country is far away from modern world, go abroad, say to the USA, you’ll understand that we’re 50 years BEHIND, the least!
I'm surprised you are not offered free breakfast in the morning before the Maltese go to work.