Life-saving cancer medication in Trinidad and Tobago can cost close to $40,000 a month, a reality that cancer survivor Nicole Dyer-Griffith has described as “untenable” and one that leaves many patients with little choice but to go without treatment.

Dyer-Griffith made the disclosure on Saturday during the soft launch of the Healing Hub Patient Navigation and Advocacy Centre at her home in Moka, Maraval, where she spoke candidly about the financial, emotional and psychological toll of managing cancer.

“I picked up the phone and I asked a big Pharma company what was the cost of the drugs for me to take,” she said. “And when they told me the cost of these drugs, that was the one time I felt defeated.”