Murdered by the NHS - Blood on Gordon Brown's hands.

A Grandmother whose free NHS treatment was withdrawn because she paid privately for anti-cancer drugs has died.

Yesterday Linda O'Boyle's husband condemned the policy behind the decision and said it had made his dying wife's last months even more stressful.

Mrs O'Boyle, 64, had been receiving state-funded treatment - including chemotherapy - for colon cancer.

But when she took cetuximab, a drug which promised to extend her life but is not available on the NHS, her health trust made her start paying for her care.

Mrs O'Boyle, an NHS occupational therapist, is believed to be the first person to die after being denied free care because of 'co-payment', where a patient tops up treatment by paying privately for extra drugs.

Co-payment was blocked last year by Health Secretary Alan Johnson because he claimed it would create a two-tier Health Service.

Now Brian O'Boyle, from Billericay in Essex, wants the rules changed. 'When she heard there was something that could extend her life, of course my wife jumped at it,' he said.

'She knew and I knew she was not going to get better but if there was the possibility of spending more time with her four young grandchildren we wanted to take it.

'We were quite happy to pay for the drug and to give the Health Service what it costs to buy it and to deliver the treatment but they said they could not do that.

'That is appalling. It was stressful enough for Linda having cancer without her having all this stress on top of it. Government guidelines are restrictive and trusts interpret these in different ways. It's a lottery.'

Mrs O'Boyle was operated on in January last year for colon cancer and the doctors found it had spread to her stomach lining.

The former NHS assistant occupational therapist, who has three sons, twins Gerald and Anthony, 37, and Mark, 33, as well as grandchildren Luke, four, Finn, three, Jemima, two and Darcey, two, then had six weeks of chemotherapy.

She continued with this until September last year when she and her husband were told the devastating news there was little more doctors could do.

However, her consultant recommended-Cetuximab, which could extend her life. But it is available on the NHS only in Scotland, not in England and Wales.

It is one of many medicines the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence denies to some patients because of cost.

Mrs O'Boyle's decision to take it meant she and her husband had to spend £11,000 over two months for care from Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Mr O'Boyle, an NHS manager for 30 years, said: 'I think every drug should be available to all of us if there's a need for that drug to be used.

'I offered to pay for it but was told I couldn't continue with the treatmentwe were receiving at the hospital-The consultant was flabbergasted - he was very upset.'

He added: 'I was always very anti private treatment. But everything she had wasn't working and it was a last resort.

'We were lucky we had the money, it's the people who have no recourse to it that struggle. It is wrong that they are denied the chance.'

Mr O'Boyle, who said he was convinced the drug had extended his wife's life by three months, added: 'If these guidelines were changed it would be a wonderful legacy for my wife.'

Medical experts say the ban on co-payment is one reason why Britain has one of the worst survival rates for cancer in Europe.

Cetuximab, also known as Erbitux, costs around £3,700 a month and prolongs the life of bowel cancer patients by six months on average.

Mrs O'Boyle's MP John Baron said: 'She has been penalised by an NHS system that is grossly unfair. This is morally wrong.'

A group of 1,000 doctors, called Doctors for Reform, has raised £35,000 to fund a judicial review challenging trusts which withdraw free care if a patient adds private drugs to NHS treatment.

Spokesman Dr Christoph Lees said: 'Just because the NHS can't seem to afford some expensive new drugs, we shouldn't stop people topping up.'

A spokesman for the Southend trust said: 'It is explained to the patient that they can either have their treatment under the NHS or privately but not both in parallel.'

**Think about that, she wants to live. A drug that might offer her that chance to have some extra time is not available on the NHS. So like I and many others would do, she pays for the drug out of her own funds.

The narrow minded folk who run our NHS see that as wrong, so they withdraw treatment.

After all rules are rules.

This amoral bunch of fucks that make up New Labour decided to let a person die, after all stepping outside the NHS would now seem to be a capital offence. And it has proven to be the case.

New Labour a bunch of controlling bastards, utter cunts that would sooner see folk die than break with their dogma of socialism. Their regulations have now been shown to be far more important than the life of a human being.

The fine idea that Labour have come up with is that there is No Co-Payment, none, rules are rules. You can get no medical help what so ever that the NHS can not, will not, or chooses not to provide for you. If you choose to do that, then you can forget any chance of getting government provided care, that will be withdrawn and if you die then so be it.

But let us say nothing, not a peep on the squillions pissed away on management consultants, dubious IT systems that will never work, oh and if you happen to be an illegal migrant will fair enough pop on down to Wales and you can get all the free health care you like.

Want a sex change or some larger/smaller size bobbies? Howl about being oppressed, depressed and/or human rights and you will be sorted out in no time at all. Lots of money for all that, yet not for the late Mrs O'Boyle.

The biggest employer, a huge state run socialist quango creaking at the seams, where old folk can die on trollys, although if that does not kill them they can be left to starve to death or die from C.Diff or MRSA.

I and I am sure many others will remember this the next time some contemptable Rt. Hon. cunt from the Labour party stands in The House to condemn anyone on human rights.

They said the NHS was safe in their hands. Safe? Safe for who exactly, the point, the whole point behind the NHS was to save the lifes of people. Quite how can they argue that they have acted in best interests of the late Mrs O' Boyle?

What about Mrs O'Boyle's right to life? The sad and tragic part of this is that had she been in prison, you can bet that those drugs would have been provided for her. No problem there. Should some child murdering scumbag like Ian Huntley find himself in that position, rather than being left to die slowly in extreme pain as he deserves they will be fawning all over him, providing better care than sodding BUPA.

New Labour will be reminded of this, each and every time some contemptable shit of an MP stands up to pontificate at great length about our "world class" NHS, or human rights I will be here to remind them that each and every one of them washed their hands of her.

The noble class warriors were quite happy to go along with the idea of stopping Co-Payment, so fuck the lot of them.

My sympathies go to Mr O'Boyle and his family.

.