Group seeks improved access to medicines

The Government’s promise of a national medicines strategy needs to include a review of the way medicines are approved for subsidy and supply says the Access to Medicines NGO Coalition (ATM), at the group’s official launch in Wellington today (November 24).

ATM spokesperson Steve Attwood says the group welcomes the promise in the Speech from the Throne at Parliament’s opening that the Government will “develop a long term medicines strategy to ensure quality pharmaceutical usage in the health sector.”

“However,” Steve Attwood says, “ATM will seek to ensure that the process of developing this strategy is open, transparent and allows for input from affected groups and individuals. Such a nationally important policy must not be developed in isolation from the people it will affect.”

ATM, comprised of 25 non-government health organisations, says it also wants a review of Pharmac, the Government’s drug funding agency. It says the way Pharmac operates currently, combined with a lack of an overall national medicines policy, means there is too much focus on the immediate budgetary cost of medicinal drugs and not enough consideration of the overall cost to the health system, the community, families and individuals when drugs are either not approved for use in New Zealand or are approved for use but not subsidised by Pharmac.

“Many ATM members can tell tales of people being in hospital, being severely debilitated, and requiring expensive, intrusive and long term medical intervention,” Steve Attwood says, “when, if drugs already used overseas were available and/or subsidised here, those same people could still be working, paying taxes, supporting their families and contributing to their communities. The non-availability or unaffordability of some medicines has meant a greater burden on the health system than what it would cost just to make the medicines available.”

Steve Attwood says some people have been forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars on unsubsidised treatments their medical specialists say they need. Others, fortunate enough to qualify for subsidised care in other countries, have had to leave their homes and families and move overseas. Some people have neither option and have died waiting for new drugs to be approved for subsidy.

ATM says that the problem is not just the way Pharmac is required to operate under current budgetary restrictions, but also the lack of a National Medicines Policy, which needs to include an “orphan drug” provision to ensure that people with rare, but severe, disorders do not miss out because their illness does not meet population-based criteria for subsidised treatment.

The objective of ATM is to: “Improve access to prescription medicines in New Zealand by increasing the efficiency of approval and distribution process.”

It seeks to:

• Ensure all New Zealanders have parity with other OECD countries with regard to access to pharmaceutical treatments.
• Have health outcomes maximised by efficient and coordinated use of ALL health sector services.
• Make sure that health practitioners are provided with adequate and appropriate resources and supported by an infrastructure that encourages best practice.
• Reduce the time and cost that has become inherent in listing new medications on the pharmaceutical schedule.
• Increase the number of new medicines listed on the pharmaceutical schedule so that there is parity with the numbers of medicines that other OECD countries make available.
• Develop a new focus on pharmaceuticals in New Zealand to include the consideration of new strategies: for example, adopting orphan drug rules and creating a National Medicines Policy for New Zealand.

Member groups include: ADDvocate, Alzheimers New Zealand, Arthritis New Zealand, Asthma New Zealand, Balance, Cancer Society, Carers New Zealand, Continence Association, Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand, Diabetes New Zealand, Diabetes Youth, Epilepsy New Zealand, IDFNZ, Kidney Kids, LAM Trust, Leukaemia and Blood Foundation, Lysosomal Diseases New Zealand, Multiple Sclerosis Society of New Zealand, Myeloma Matters, New Zealand AIDS Foundation, New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, Parkinsons New Zealand, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Contact: ATM Spokesperson