The three women taking the breast cancer drug Herceptin are calling on the government to refund part of the money they forked out for this prohibitively expensive treatment.
The women, who had to stump up €2,500 every three weeks for this potentially life-saving drug, feel betrayed that the promise to provide Herceptin for free took months to materialise.
One of the women, a 44-year-old mother of one, said that last April Parliamentary Secretary Joe Cassar had committed himself to making the drug available for free within a few months.
Despite the good intentions, the promise was broken twice because a small provision ordered specifically for these three women was also delayed by five weeks, before the Finance Ministry gave its approval.
The first batch of free Herceptin finally arrived on December 23, but for these women it has come too late.
"We welcome the government's move because other women will benefit, and although it helps us, we just have the last two treatments left," said the mother, who did not wish to be named.
Speaking on behalf of the two other women, she said the entire 12-month treatment would have cost each person just over €42,000. Luckily, the Malta Community Chest Fund paid half the sum.
The women's savings were dented, one mortgaged her home, another got a loan, and they all depended on the goodwill and donations from their friends.
"We feel the government should compensate us for the treatment we took since June - we had to pay for the right to live. We had no choice but to buy Herceptin at an inflated cost from the only importer. If the government had bought it and sold us the drug, it would have been much cheaper," she said.
The women's demands mean the government would have to fork out about €10,000 for each one; a sum they feel is a fair compensation to allow them to close the chapter on this ugly episode in their lives.
However, when contacted, a Finance Ministry spokesman said it was highly unlikely that the government would meet these women's requests for a refund.
"If we did so we would clearly be creating a precedent. I won't say an outright no, but I can't realistically see this request being entertained," he said.
Apart from the small batch ordered as a stopgap solution the government is spending €1.3 million a year to start providing Herceptin free to all women who can benefit from this drug, calculated at 40 each year. Herceptin, which reduces the risk of death, works on about 25 per cent of breast cancer patients who have tumours classed as HER2 positive, an aggressive form of cancer.