Dai Havard

Labour Party | Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney

Cancer patients Could Solve Blood Crisis!

For more than two years I have repeatedly shown Health Ministers that drug alternatives to blood for cancer patients could both improve their quality of care and avoid any crisis in blood supply. John Reid is right to extend the precautionary principle for blood donors. But that doesn’t need to result in panic or a crisis in blood supply. In my constituency I have one of the highest rates of cancer sufferers and I want to see better quality of care for them. Many could be treated at home or locally withy modern drugs and not need to travel on difficult journey’s round the Valley’s for transfusions and take up valuable hospital resources. Cancer patients are the largest group receiving blood and I am grateful to all who donate blood. I do it and I urge all who can to do it. I have helped get experts in health treatments like NICE and the group in Wales, to decide on greater use of EPO drugs for cancer patients. But change is very slow. Step changes can be made and I hope that this latest set of events will see this happen. The National Blood Service estimate that blood donors could now drop by 3% but in the past Ministers have said to me that such a change could see anything from a 7% to 14% drop. That shortfall could quickly be taken up by better modern drug treatment for cancer patients. They do it in Spain, Greece, USA etc. This is an opportunity to move to EU standards of care and avoid any crisis. As we get better at treating cancer it’s moving from an acute to a chronic disease and we need to change our treatments to reflect that. This is basic lay man’s science not rocket science!