Jenny Agutter on her niece being diagnosed with Cystic fibrosis
Call The Midwife star Jenny Agutter discussed cystic fibrosis and how the condition has impacted her family with ITV viewers.
During her appearance on Loose Women on Wednesday, Jenny opened up about her niece Rachel whose health battle inspired a Call The Midwife storyline.
Jenny, who portrays Sister Julienne on the BBC medical drama, told the panel: “My niece has CF (cystic fibrosis) and also my nephew who we recently discovered has CF.”
The 70-year-old actress continued: “The extraordinary news is that from when she was born up to today, I mean the drugs she is now taking, are what they call a breakthrough drug which comes from a company called Vertex and that has changed her life completely.
“However, the drug does not appear to be readily available due to its cost and is not being recommended to sufferers by the National Institute for Health And Care Excellence (NICE).
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Jenny expanded: “The difficulty that we are facing now is that they are extremely expensive and NICE is no longer recommending them.
“And they’re going through a period where they are looking at that to see whether they can actually be cost-effective.”
“The great hope is that Vertex, who are now in profit from the drugs, will bring the cost right down, so globally people with cystic fibrosis will get that benefit.
“Because if they don’t, I mean I think they are talking about a 40-year difference in people’s lives, it is absolutely amazing it really is a big change.”
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Jenny’s experience with the condition caused her to mention it to Call The Midwife screenwriter Heidi Thomas which inspired an emotive storyline.
The actress, who rose to fame in The Railway Children, shared: “Each year they are looking at the medical changes that happen and in our third series we were dealing with a year that cystic fibrosis, they could test and find out about it and I put that story forward to Heidi Thomas and she created the most wonderful story around a family that had CF.”
The Call The Midwife Christmas special is just around the corner, ahead of season 13 hitting BBC screens.
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