Please note: This story features tonight Mon 9 May 2016 on the TV program Australian Story at 8.00 pm ABC. Danielle Tindle was on Keytruda and it reduced the cancer then stabilised it for a while. Now she is on Opdivo + Yervoy. At the age of 36, Danielle Tindle has been given an ultimatum — your money or your life. A decade after surviving Hodgkin's lymphoma, Dr Tindle is critically ill with another rare cancer. But this time, she is being forced to pay thousands of dollars for potentially life-saving drugs which are available at minimal cost to other patients under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). When Dr Tindle gets her immunotherapy for cancer every two weeks, it costs her nearly $5,000 a shot. In the private hospital cubicle next to her could be a melanoma patient who is paying just $6.20 per treatment. The discrepancy is due to drug listing requirements for the PBS. "[The melanoma patient] is receiving it at a PBS subsidised rate, while I'm paying thousands of dollars," Dr Tindle told Australian Story. "There's no-one that could look me in the eye, from any level of government, or even the drug companies, and say that's a fair situation. Something needs to change." Rare Cancers Australia chief executive Richard Vines said: "There's a lot of people out there who are very surprised when they get diagnosed with a rare cancer, that what they thought was a good, safe health system which provided drugs for people, just doesn't. "Nobody thinks it's fair. It's so frustrating. "The [drugs] are sitting on the shelf, the Government's OK'd them for one type of cancer, and not for the other." Australian Story featured Dr Tindle in 2005, after she survived Hodgkin's lymphoma. Ultimately her life was saved by her father's own groundbreaking stem-cell research. Since then, she has advocated for improved services and care for other young cancer patients, and become a world leader in the field. "Danielle is someone who has fought really hard to make a difference to people like me, and to future adolescent and young adult patients," said Jasmine Gailer, a former cancer patient and founder of cancer support charity, Scar Stories. Lou's comment: Same for myself and thousands of other patients with 'rare lesser known cancers'! Why should we be penalised to pay thousands of dollars for life saving treatments especially when real life cases prove these drugs work and have the potential to be the new way to treat cancers. Please continue to sign my petition and share with others.