What country?

I would direct your doctor to the local hospital Infectious diseases clinic & in the meantime as long as the meds are the right type for your geno type (check this site) start taking them. Your local doctor sounds to me like one of those people that went to uni once in there early twenties got a degree & sat back for a decade or 3. Regards Angus

Hello Apcail,

I am sorry to hear this has happened and am happy to monitor your treatment.

My father Dr John Freeman, FRACP who is a Consultant Physician sent me an email:

James
This is ridiculous. What happens about this?

He also said he would be happy to monitor you and suggested that your doctor’s behaviour is out of line with the expected duty of care.

Consider this. If you came to me as a GP and said “I smoke dope for my chronic pain” would it be reasonable for me to say “I refuse to be your GP because….”

In this email from back in early December of last year you will not that Professor Greg door asked me to let Greg Jefferys know that both he and St Vincents we supporting patients taking generics

From: GP2U Telehealth
Date: 4 December 2015 at 16:44
Subject: Fwd: RVR Results for CG
To: greg jefferys

[snip]

Generic treatment is safe and effective and hundreds of patients have benefited. You don’t need permission to do what is best for your health.

So your specialist supports generics, wrote you a script to go through Greg J, but dId not recognise the drugs obtained through Buyers Club (Twinvir?).
The specialist now plans to support your treatment with branded Harvoni, which I can’t see as a bad outcome. I am sure someone will buy the generics off you.
Which state do you live in, by the way? I am curious why the specialist trusted Greg J so much but did not know about the FixHepC connection and the other generics.

.

I reckon if you have the drugs now, start taking them now. They will be the same drugs you would have to wait till March to get under PBS. Harvoni is just the registered brand name for sofosbuvir + ledipasvir which is exactly what you would have got through Buyers Club, presuming that’s what you were prescribed.
Technically if your specialist referred you to Greg Jeffreys who referred you to Buyers Club, you did get them through Greg J. Your specialist is being an arsehole (someone had to say it).

Dr Freeman has offered to monitor you. Make an appointment with him via GP2U (or personally if you are in Hobart) and arrange that.

Sonix nails it, I was going to suggest the same thing last night but was tired and thought I better wait until I have had some sleep before having a rant.

Hi Apcail and Sonix,

I expect I am in the category of taking generic meds (since late October 2015) that I would be discussing with my specialist (the free PBS version) in early April 2016. Some five months to then of HCV wrecking my liver is my view.

I have a lot of sympathy for the position medicos find themselves in – they like to be in control and given the stakes, so they should. But this later day plague has run rampant and until recently there has not been the meds to reasonably control it; it appears there now is.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who invent things and come up with meds that cure diseases like this. They should be compensated and given the protection of patents to ensure they have a reasonable go at getting some pay back – payback, not gouging.

But …… We are in the situation we are in and want to get better. My view is that we would be fools and somewhat irresponsible if we didn’t. Hard place to be in; but it makes the question of what to do meds wise, easy (at least for me).

I expect you will find this forum a good sense of support information and emotionally, and often a good read when someone decides to have a rant. I have watched many members through their postings move from arranging treatment to starting treatment and if this is the outcome for you, the support is here. Much more than I remember in the Interferon days when we felt like grateful recipients of the poisonous nectar someone else enabled our getting.

yours

J.