Help an Aussie Mate

Pat was born and bred on the northern beaches of Sydney, he moved to New Zealand in 2015 when his (now ex) wife was offered an employment opportunity here. She's a Kiwi and convinced him that NZ is awesome. He and the family settled in Rotorua, and he found a job working in Forestry, delivering IT support. Over the last few weeks, Pat has found a series of melanomas on his scalp, which have now been diagnosed as Stage IV Melanoma with a BRAF mutation, which is aggressive. This means we need to quickly get on with immunotherapy and run two drugs at once with the goal of moving a 3-6 month lifespan out 5+ years (hopefully). One of the drugs is funded, the other is not. Ipilimumab costs $10,000 per session, and we are going to need at least four sessions.

Due to the cost of living challenges, he had to step away from private health insurance 6 months ago, so he has no cover other than what is offered through PHARMAC.

Pat is a fundamentally decent human being, trying to do his best and contribute. He has adopted NZ as his home and wants to stay here. Funding is available in Australia for both medications and, if needed, he can travel there, but will need to stay in Australia for the duration, away from his 16-year-old daughter - something he prefers not to do if it can be avoided.