Tony Wilson - Illness

Illness

After developing renal cancer, and having one kidney removed in 2007, Wilson wished to take the drug sunitinib (aka Sutent), the £3,500 per month cost of which was not funded by the Manchester Primary Care Trust. He was turned down by the NHS, while patients being treated alongside him at the Christie Hospital and living just a few miles away in Cheshire received funding for the medication, for other conditions.

A number of Wilson's music industry friends, including former Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough and their current manager, Elliot Rashman and TV stars Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan, formed a fund to help pay for Wilson's medical treatment.

Wilson said: "This is my only real option. It is not a cure but can hold the cancer back, so I will probably be on it until I die. When they said I would have to pay £3,500 for the drugs each month, I thought where am I going to find the money? I'm the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money. I used to say some people make money and some make history, which is very funny until you find you can't afford to keep yourself alive. I've never paid for private healthcare because I'm a socialist. Now I find you can get tummy tucks and cosmetic surgery on the NHS but not the drugs I need to stay alive. It is a scandal."

Read more about this topic:  Tony Wilson

Famous quotes containing the word illness:

    All signs of superhuman nature appear in man as illness or insanity.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    To you illness is negligible. You have learned that you can dominate yourself. You know that your body lags, but your soul proceeds upon its triumphant way.
    Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)

    Men have their own questions, and they differ from those of mothers. New mothers are more interested in nutrition and vulnerability to illness while fathers tend to ask about when they can take their babies out of the house or how much sleep babies really need.
    Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)