Matthews: paying for cancer drug not my decision

Ontario’s health minister says she can’t intervene to help a Toronto mother receive funding for a breast cancer drug.

Jill Anzarut, 35, was told she wasn’t eligible to receive the drug — which costs about $40,000 — because her tumour is too small.

Health minister Deb Matthews says it’s up to the experts to decide whether an exception can be made.
“I don’t have the expertise, nobody sitting around the cabinet table has the expertise to make these determinations.”
“We can’t make decisions on what drugs to fund based on what stories are on the front page of the newspaper.”
In Ontario, the drug can be prescribed for cases where the tumour is more than one centimetre in diameter.
Anzarut’s tumour is half a centimetre.