Patient advocates meet with Labour to discuss medicine access

Rare Disorders NZ along with other patient advocates met with Labour health spokesperson and former Minister of Health Hon. Dr. Ayesha Verrall and her colleagues Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe and Camilla Belich on 16 July at a meeting organised by Patient Voice Aotearoa.

The meeting was focused on looking ahead to how medicine access can be improved in New Zealand. Dr. Verrall was interested to hear from patient groups about what is important to us and what challenges the patients we respectively represent continue to face.

Patient groups present voiced concerns about the culture of Pharmac, the need for medicine funding to be significantly increased, the lack of transparency around Pharmac’s assessment processes and too much weight placed on cost containment. There were calls for a cross-party consensus to how medicine access can be improved to ensure whichever Government is in place, the trajectory would remain the same.

“New Zealanders deserve to enjoy the benefits of modern medicines and currently too many don’t”, stated Dr. Verrall as she shared some of her own concerns, including the need to raise funding for medicines, supply chain issues, the risk of equity being diminished following current changes and the importance of horizon scanning.

The dialogue was constructive, and we hope the meeting represents the beginning of many more discussions to ensure the patient voice is heard and incorporated in policy development.