Plea to pollies: Fund Pharmac
Julian and Camilla Cox were hoping for a welcome from their politicians after travelling 12,000 kilometres, towing a coffin on a tandem pushbike.
Instead, they were disappointed and disgusted by the insistence that their coffin – symbolic of the people who died without access to affordable drugs – could not be placed in front of Parliament’s steps.
Their protest was born to shed a light on the underfunding of and access to lifesaving medicines through Pharmac.
At the journey’s end outside the Beehive yesterday, the couple said they hoped to make a change for their 19-yearold daughter Rachel, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, and other Kiwis needing accessibility to drugs.
‘‘Every moment that the Government does nothing about the funding for Pharmac, they have blood on their hands,’’ Camilla said. ‘‘Families are dying, our families are being torn apart . . . You ask how I feel? I feel furious, I’m disgusted and I’m disappointed with our politicians, with our representatives.’’
Tears rolled down her face as she read the scrawled messages adorning the simple wooden coffin that were made by the people she and her husband had met along the ride.
‘‘This is the one that touches me most,’’ Camilla said as she pointed to a note on the coffin’s lid. ‘‘Please let me live longer, please don’t bankrupt my family,’’ it said. The woman was pleading for an affordable breast cancer treatment which cost $10,000 a month.
She walks around it to read another from the woman’s daughter, ‘‘Thank you for fighting, save my mum.’’
‘‘We have met so many amazing people on this trip. New Zealanders deserve better and if you lot can’t give us that then damn it, you’re not doing your job right,’’ Camilla said.
‘‘Are you listening?’’ her husband shouted toward Parliament.
The Coxes’ shirts read ‘‘rip.kiwi’’, to direct supporters for their cause to their petition which had 21,984 signatures.
Pallbearers carried Hope, a small skeleton, atop the coffin. Two children held up signs, ‘‘They were us’’, playing on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s now famous words of empathy toward the Muslim community, following the Christchurch shootings.
‘‘We are marking the end of a journey, we are hopefully marking a point at which the petition will continue to gain momentum and I hope that the people in this building will pay attention.’’
Members of advocacy group Patient Voice Aotearoa joined the protest, calling for "an immediate doubling of Pharmac’s budget’’.
Health Minister David Clark said the health committee would consider the petition and acknowledged the Coxes’ determination.