Summary
Getting a cancer diagnosis can be a scary and fraught time, before you even begin to consider the financial pressures. Affording time out of work, the cost of getting to appointments, or even the price of drugs in different parts of the country can present issues for many.
Ruth Alexander is joined by a panel of experts to hear caller experiences of the costs of cancer.
Panel: Ceinwen Giles - Shine Richard Pugh - Macmillan
Producer: Drew Hyndman and Amber Mehmood Editor: Beatrice Pickup
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:07.0 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.0 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:14.0 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for |
| 0:21.7 | Lucan. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex Fontunzelman. |
| 0:27.4 | This is The Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:40.3 | Welcome to this Moneybox podcast. In this episode, we're talking about the financial cost of cancer. |
| 0:43.3 | By some estimates, patients typically end up hundreds of pounds a month worse off as their earning power falls and living costs rise. |
| 0:52.3 | Let's talk now to Beth. Beth, you were about to start your |
| 0:55.1 | own business when you were diagnosed with breast cancer. What impact did the diagnosis have on you? |
| 1:02.0 | Everything just changed in the matter of seconds, really. So I've got a, well, at the time I had a |
| 1:07.5 | three and a six-year-old. I just finished my degree. I was weeks away from opening my business. |
| 1:13.0 | So I felt like my life was moving on to the next stage. |
| 1:17.5 | And then, yeah, it just all came crashing down. |
| 1:19.3 | As soon as you hear the word cancer, I mean, I've got no experience with it previously. |
| 1:23.9 | And so I just kind of thought death sentence, |
| 1:26.0 | and I was thinking about how much time I had left to live rather than anything else. |
| 1:29.3 | And what financial situation did you find yourself in at this terrible time? |
| 1:36.3 | So I'd not long finished my degree. |
| 1:39.3 | So my student finance had just run out on that. |
| 1:43.3 | And I'd been made redundant for my job about 18 months before. |
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