NOBODY with cancer should have to pay for the drugs they need. It's just not fair.

Not our words, but those of mother-of-two Rose Harrison, whose kidney cancer has left her with only weeks to live. A plight which makes her words all the more powerful.

Mrs Harrison, aged 59, spent nearly £10,000 of her own money on a new life-prolonging drug after conventional chemotherapy failed.

Even though the drug, Sunitinib, is recommended by kidney cancer experts for people with an advanced form of the disease who meet the criteria, local NHS bosses refused to pay for it.

The North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) said it had considered the evidence for Sunitinib's effectiveness and had decided it should not be routinely prescribed.

"This decision is in line with other major commissioning bodies, including the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)," a spokesman for the PCT said.

What an unfeeling attitude from the organisation responsible for looking after our health.

We know hard-up local health bosses have a limited budget and a duty to get best value for money. But we are talking about people's lives.

Sadly, Sunitinib has not been able to save Mrs Harrison. But it gave her hope - and precious extra months of life she would not otherwise have enjoyed. No one can put a price on that.

The real tragedy is that this courageous woman should have had to spend so much of her last few months fighting for a treatment that should have been hers by right.