Dunne Peter: General Debate 
Dunne Peter: General Debate 
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Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Tempted as I am to deal with the diversions that we have seen for most of the afternoon I want to talk in the time available to me about an issue that affects the lives of a large number of New Zealanders—that is the way in which Pharmac administers pharmaceutical policy in this country. 
As I speak in the House this afternoon 100000 New Zealand diabetics are suffering from their illness yet under Pharmac’s policy only 3000 of those 100000 have access to the medications they need. The New Zealanders who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease get no assistance in the way of Pharmac funding for medications that deal with their condition nor do those with Parkinson’s disease receive some of the new medicines being developed. The dopamine agonists are not funded nor is the latest catechol-0-methyl transferase inhibitor Contan. Adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis are not being funded for their medication. In fact some of them are paying $500 a week privately at a time when Treasury tells us that the average wage is $554 a week. Only 210 out of 3500 relapsing and remitting multiple sclerosis sufferers have subsidised access to Betaferon. The rest either suffer in agony or pay privately. The Government and others have made a huge—and proper—cry about the need for better detection of breast cancer and better treatment for breast cancer sufferers. In fact at the moment only those with advanced breast cancer get subsidised medicines out of Pharmac. 
This is a crisis. The reality we have in this country is that New Zealanders have less access to new medicines than people living in every other country apart from either Portugal or Japan. We are a small market economy of just 4 million people and we are not an attractive market anyway for pharmaceutical investment. Yet we see the absence of a coherent medicines policy which is leaving New Zealanders exposed and suffering. 
In this House a few weeks ago a lot of concern was expressed about the failure of the flu vaccine supply policy this year but in actual fact we now discover that that is just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Last year alone sole supply problems occurred with Allohexal Ativan Ferrograd Folic and Ponstan. The year before there were a whole series of other conditions. Going back even further we find that other conditions have not been funded. 
Now Pharmac has the gall to say that last year it funded 15 new medicines. On investigation it can be discovered that 10 of them were medicines and five of them were actually special foods. But New Zealanders after New Zealanders are suffering because of the way in which successive Governments have applied that policy. I know of small groups of people in this country who suffer unusual conditions and who need assistance often at a costly price that they cannot get from Pharmac. 
When the issue of a national medicines policy has been raised the Minister as she acknowledged in the House this afternoon has ruled it out. Allegedly according to the Ministry of Health it would cost around $60 million to implement. There is now a position where there is no confidence in our drug-buying agency—a position where most New Zealanders feel that Pharmac’s primary function rather than negotiating the best price for pharmaceuticals is now making clinical judgments about what pharmaceuticals are appropriate for particular conditions. 
Every member will know of the cases that come before them on a frequent basis of individuals who say: “I have been told I need this for my particular condition but all I can get a prescription for is some generic set of alternatives.” It has gone too far. We face a situation where we need a coherent strategy that brings the pharmaceutical equation into our overall approach to medicine. What we have had for too long has been an approach that has seen pharmaceuticals as somehow either an attractive added extra that we cannot afford or the product of some vast set of multinational conglomerates with agendas that are other than beneficial to the people of New Zealand. 
The net consequence of that attitude and of a chronic underfunding of Pharmac to do its work is the crisis situation we now face. So we can talk about other diversions in this House if we like but those realities will remain.