Bearing in mind that everything has to be paid for, and rare drugs cost a lot of money, the question then becomes how much should the country spend per year of productive live saved?
Apparently it's about £30,000. That seems like a lot of wonga to me. There are rare cancer drugs that cost (say) £100,000/year and might give an additional life expectancy of 1 to 2 years. Let's face it, it's not worth the cost to provide this kind of care for someone who is going to die anyway with no chance of reprieve. This sounds heartless, but we're all going to die, £100,000 on a child of 2 with an additional 80 years life ahead is nothing. £100,000 to prolong the life of a dying person for a year or two is not worth it.
We're all going to die, I'd rather die in comfort, with fantastic medical support for palliative care than have heroic efforts spent on giving me a few months extra life.
We need to enhance the quality of death, not prolong life at all costs. It's done with dogs all the time, would you spend 100,000 to prolong the life of your beloved dog? Or would you rather spend 1000 to ensure the last couple of months were pain free and a good death?
