Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Tasmanian grandmother Dorothy Thurley has been fighting bowel cancer for eight years and is being kept alive by a drug not covered by the PBS. Too sick to work, Mrs Thurley has applied for a credit card to help her cover the $60,000 a year cost of buying the drug, even though she is broke from spending $20,000 on another drug, which has stopped working. Why on earth are people like Mrs Thurley in such circumstances when we live in one of the richest countries in the world? Please, will the government reconsider its decision to pause new PBS listings so that people like Mrs Thurley do not have to take out loans to save their lives?

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