The Netherlands can no longer deny MS patients the only treatment that can prevent them from completely deteriorating and ending up in a wheelchair. According to the Scientific Professional Association of Neurologists.
“We are convinced that stem cell therapy is an effective treatment. In all countries around us, the treatment has been offered and reimbursed for years for the small group of patients in whom medication does not work, except in the Netherlands. That can no longer be sustained. These patients suffer from a very disabling disease,” said a spokesman for the Dutch Neurology Association.
Because they cannot receive treatment in the Netherlands, a growing number of MS patients travel for a stem cell transplant to countries such as Mexico, Sweden and (before the war) Russia. Doctors are very concerned about this trend. Not only because it makes them lose sight of their patients. “It undermines trust in healthcare if people can’t rely on us to give them the best treatment available.”
Significantly cheaper
The health insurers recently reassessed that ‘it has not yet been established that it concerns effective care’. They deny that the costs of the treatment play a role in their consideration.
“Multiple sclerosis is a rotten disease that mostly affects young people. It is morally unsaleable not to offer patients the only treatment that can prevent them from ending up in wheelchairs and further cognitively deteriorating,” said a spokesperson for the MS Association. “In the past, stem cell transplantation was not without danger, but in recent years it has become a lot safer. In addition, the treatment is considerably cheaper in the long run, because years of treatments with expensive drugs, medical aids and hospital visits are saved.
The Ministry of Health finds it ‘distressing’ that MS patients who have completed treatment go abroad. “But according to the National Health Care Institute, the effectiveness of this treatment has not (yet) been demonstrated.” The National Health Care Institute says in a response that it now sees sufficient reason for a new assessment. “We expect that this will lead to a final position before the end of the year.”
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