'MBE is for my fellow victims' says Clive (From Oxford Mail)

'MBE is for my fellow victims' says Clive

CANCER treatment campaigner Clive Stone received his MBE yesterday but told Prince Charles he didn’t know if he would get the operation to stop a brain tumour killing him.

Clive Stone poses at Buckingham Palace yesterday with the MBE he received from Prince Charles

On the same day that Mr Stone was picking up the honour, NHS Oxfordshire bosses were meeting to decide whether his appeal for a life-extending operation would be granted.

Mr Stone last night dedicated his MBE to fellow sufferers who have died.

The 63-year-old, from Freeland, near Witney – who has campaigned to get kidney cancer patients prescribed life-saving drugs – has been been told his kidney cancer has spread to his brain.

Two tumours have been surgically removed but Mr Stone now needs gamma knife radiosurgery to remove a third.

NHS Oxfordshire’s exceptional cases panel met yesterday to consider whether Mr Stone should be allowed to have the operation on the NHS.

After the ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Mr Stone, said: “I told Prince Charles I was waiting for a decision on my life.

“He said ‘I’m sorry to hear that and thank you for everything you’ve done’. He wished me luck and all the best.

“It was an emotional day.”

He added: “It’s very nice to have the MBE but it’s not just for me, it’s for all the cancer patients who we have lost without getting drugs.

“Prince Charles thanked me for all the work I have done for cancer patients and I told him I would carry on for as long as I can.”

Mr Stone said the health trust had asked him to write a letter to explain why he should be allowed to have the operation. He said he might hear the decision today, adding: “I am expecting the worst.

“I don’t feel that I’m an exceptional case more than anyone else, but I do feel it is unfair that people who are very ill should have to write a letter explaining why they should be kept alive.

“Without this operation I will die, and it is like living with a ticking timebomb.

“Two neurologists and an oncologist have said I need the operation now and any delay is dangerous.”

Mr Stone was joined at the palace by his wife Jan and children Andrew and Kate.

Mrs Stone, who is suffering breast cancer, was able to delay a new type of treatment so that she would feel well enough to attend the investiture ceremony.