Crohn's disease sufferer Anna Rawlings Blackmore considered leaving her University of Otago course to move to another area where she could get access to a drug not funded in Otago.
Miss Rawlings Blackmore has suffered from severe Crohn's disease for four years.
Crohn's is an inflammatory disease of the intestinal tract.
The old Otago District Health Board was one of few DHBs in New Zealand that declined to fund infliximab.
Miss Rawlings Blackmore received her first cycle of infliximab, which costs about $30,000 a year, 10 weeks ago.
It is given when other drugs fail and negates the need for invasive and sometimes unsuccessful surgery.
Since receiving it, she had virtually no pain, which had previously been so severe she had been prescribed morphine.
"Normally, I would count myself lucky if I had a day free of pain."
If successful, the drug should ease the disease into remission.
Miss Rawlings Blackmore had dreaded disrupting to her bachelor of arts degree by moving to another area.
Her mother, Henriette, said she personally appealed to Southern District Health Board chief executive Brian Rousseau and believed this was the reason the funding was approved.
Mr Rousseau had previously publicly said the drug would not be funded until a national agreement between DHBs was reached.
As a single parent, she could not afford the drug.
Pharmac does not fund infliximab.
The old Southland board had funded it, but Ms Rawlings believed the merger of the two DHBs last month was not a factor.
Ms Rawlings said although she was delighted the DHB was allowing her daughter access to the vital drug, she wished to ensure it was made available to other patients, many of whom had fought unsuccessfully for Otago to fund it.
It was not right that access to a drug paid for by taxpayers depended on where a person happened to live, she said.
Ms Rawlings is on the board of a new national body, Crohn's Colitis New Zealand, which is to be launched next month.
The new body would push for greater awareness and a national strategy for the disease, she said.
Mr Rousseau, contacted yesterday, said the board decided to fund infliximab because most other DHBs were funding it.
