Pharmac funding ‘kick in the guts’
Government hails extra cash but campaigners upset
Critically ill patients say they’re “bitterly disappointed” by yesterday’s Pharmac Budget announcement and were left looking into each other’s eyes knowing some among them would now likely face an earlier death.
The Government announced in Budget 2022 that Pharmac would be given an additional $191 million over the next two years to buy muchneeded drugs for people with debilitating and life-threatening illnesses.
Government ministers hailed it as the drug-buying agency’s biggest funding boost.
Health Minister Andrew Little said Pharmac would use the cash to buy as many medicines as it could and focus on better cancer treatments.
But the about 30 ill patients and advocates gathered at Parliament for the Budget had arrived with higher expectations.
They had hoped for an extra $417m in funding to clear a wait list of 78 drugs that Pharmac wants to buy but doesn’t have enough money for.
Patient Voice Aotearoa chairman Malcolm Mulholland said New Zealand was lagging far behind other nations in subsidising much-needed medicines.
“We’re bitterly disappointed,” he said.
“Patients will continue to die here, whereas overseas they don’t.”
Pharmac’s operations have been under question in recent years and led to a major review of the way it purchased medicines in March 2021.
The review panel questioned how Pharmac prioritised medicines for treating rare disorders — including potentially expensive medicines which could offer major health gains to small numbers of people.
The panel, which former Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin chaired, heard it could take from nine months to 10 years to get a medicine through Pharmac’s funding process.
The Health Minister received the review’s final report in early March and calls have emerged for him to release it.
Pharmac funding was also in the spotlight three weeks ago, after the Cancer Control Agency said New Zealanders were missing out on many potentially life-saving treatments.
The agency identified 20 different gaps across nine different cancer types where the medicine was publicly funded in Australia, but not in New Zealand. Other researchers including Mulholland identified even more gaps.
Yesterday’s new funding amounted to $71m this year and $120m next year.
Pharmac’s total funding will now be $1.2 billion, which Little said was 43 per cent up since his Government came to power in 2017.
Pharmac chief executive Sarah Fitt said the cash injection would mean more treatments would become available in the next 12-24 months.
The agency said it has started formal consultation on proposals to fund drugs for breast, lung and blood cancer, multiple sclerosis, hormone replacement and HIV.
However, Mulholland said many would still miss out despite the new funding.
Those gathered at Parliament included patients from the Crohn’s & Colitis support group and others with cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 1 diabetes.
It would now be a lottery as to which among them would have the drug they needed funded, he said.
Chauntel Wedlake also travelled to Parliament from Auckland with her 2-year-old daughter Zoey Butcher yesterday for the Budget.
Zoey suffers from spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which if untreated would leave her unable to walk or even stand.
Wedlake said she’s seen children with SMA treated with governmentfunded drugs overseas regain the strength to run, jump and “do so many things”.
But after yesterday’s announcement there was no way of knowing whether the drug needed for Zoey would be funded.
“We came with real high expectations thinking this was the year because there had been hype that health was going to be improved in this Budget now the costs of Covid had settled down,” Wedlake said.
“But it just feels like more of a kick in the guts.”
Mulholland’s wife Wiki died last November after being diagnosed with breast cancer, and she previously raised awareness about unfunded life-extending drugs.
He said critically ill patients were confronted with their own mortality when diagnosed and because of the funding troubles they were also plunged into money trouble.
“You are sitting there thinking either I’ve got to remortgage my house or find a big dollop of money for a drug or I’ll die,” he said.
Wedlake agreed, saying she welcomed any funding boost, but the fight was not over.
“There is no way I’ll give up, I’ll do whatever it takes for my daughter and for other people in the future not to have to go through the same things we are now,” she said.