Cork man urges HSE to provide breakthrough prostate cancer therapy to public patients

At his last scan, he said: “My jaw nearly hit the floor. The cancer is in the legs, it’s in the arms, it’s in the liver, it’s in the lung, it’s in the spine, it’s just everywhere. I was shocked, I was just absolutely and utterly shocked.” 

He has received multiple different treatments. The only remaining option is a new radioligand therapy called Pluvicto.

“This is it, after this there’s nothing,” he said. “It’s not nice to even think about it. I’ve been pretty resilient about it but there are days now there’s frustration.” 

In desperation Mr Hayes has shared his story widely.

“I am very very lucky because I have a benefactor who came forward, otherwise I wouldn’t be getting this treatment yet,” he said. “My benefactor came forward out of the blue. I’m not mentioning names but it’s not the pharmaceutical company.” 

He had the first session last week: 

It’s €27,300 per session and I need at least six. 

The treatment left him exhausted but he said on Monday: “It’s a necessity of my life that I have to go through this, if I don’t I don’t have a life." 

He added: “I would ask everybody, what about the men who can’t afford this?” 

The treatment is available in eight EU countries. “The message I really want to get out is we’re Irish citizens, why can’t we access a medication that most people in Europe now can access?”

His wife and two adult sons are going through this with him, he said, adding: “I was told up to a 100 men each year are going to need this.” 

Mr Hayes has a petition on Uplift calling for the HSE to act. His plea comes after almost 40 cancer doctors and researchers wrote to the HSE urging price negotiations with Novartis to continue.

“Clinicians worldwide involved in caring for these patients regard it as a significant breakthrough therapy for patients with advanced disease,” they said in a letter highlighted in the Irish Examiner.

The treatment is approved by the European Medicines Agency. It is being assessed here so the HSE cannot comment.

They said: “The HSE is committed to providing access to as many medicines as possible, in as timely a fashion as possible, from the resources available - provided - to it.

“The HSE robustly assesses applications for pricing and reimbursement to make sure that it can stretch available resources as far as possible and to deliver the best value in relation to each medicine and ultimately more medicines to Irish citizens and patients.”