A FORMER soldier who was forced to raise £15,000 to pay for a life-saving drug has finally lost his long battle with cancer. Barry Robinson, who served in Northern Ireland and Cyprus during a distinguished army career, died last Sunday (November 23) in St

A FORMER soldier who was forced to raise £15,000 to pay for a life-saving drug has finally lost his long battle with cancer.

Barry Robinson, who served in Northern Ireland and Cyprus during a distinguished army career, died last Sunday (November 23) in St Francis Hospice, Havering-atte-Bower.

Last April the POST first highlighted his plight when Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust refused to pay for Erbitux, an anti-bowel cancer drug.

Doctors had told him he needed the treatment to stop the disease from spreading throughout his body, but the trust decided it was not the best course of action.

Over the next four months we ran a campaign to raise £15,000 to pay privately for the first round of Erbitux.

He reached his target at the end of July 2007 and it worked so well that the PCT agreed to pay for the second course of treatment.

Sadly his condition deteriorated this summer. He lost so much weight that doctors stopped his treatment last month and he was admitted to St Francis.

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