Kedgley Sue: General Debates 
Kedgley Sue: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6144] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I rise to ask a simple question of the Government and the Minister of Health. It is a question that is puzzling pharmacists around New Zealand—namely what exactly is the Government’s strategy for the pharmacy sector in New Zealand? Does the Government have a hidden agenda to decimate and ultimately do away with community-based rural and suburban pharmacies in New Zealand? Will we find that a legacy of this Government is that the local community pharmacy has become a thing of the past just as local post offices and banks have become under a previous Labour Government? That is certainly how it is looking.  
I can assure the Minister that pharmacists around the country are angry and confused at what they perceive to be a sustained attack on their sector and indeed on their professionalism under this Government. First there was the attempt to deregulate pharmacies so that multinational chains and supermarkets could take over community pharmacies. The Green Party was instrumental in defeating that proposal but we are still concerned at the loose wording in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill and we are suspicious of the Minister’s intentions with regard to pharmacy ownership. Then there was the 18-month delay in signing the pharmacy contract which caused huge distress and anxiety in the sector. But then just as pharmacists were celebrating that they had finally negotiated a new contract came the news that Pharmac is now proposing to switch to bulk dispensing—a proposal that was developed in secret without any consultation with the pharmacy sector despite the fact that it will wipe an estimated $70 million off the sector reduce pharmacy income by about a third and inevitably result in closures of small community-based pharmacies all around New Zealand. The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand estimates that more than 200 pharmacies will be closed if the proposal is implemented and that 1500 pharmacy staff will be laid off. Small neighbourhood chemists who rely on dispensing for the bulk of their income will be the hardest hit. They could lose about two-thirds of their business under the proposal. I want to know what the Government will do if the guild is correct and hundreds of small rural and suburban pharmacies close around New Zealand. Thus far the Minister has refused to answer that question.  
I will not spend much time on the merits of the proposal except to say that in our view it is short-sighted and hugely flawed. It will result in great wastage of medicine reduced compliance significant increases in inappropriate and incorrect dispensing overdoses misuse of medicines and inevitably increased hospitalisation. The proposal stipulates that cheap medicines under $17 will be dispensed 3-monthly not for health and safety or clinical reasons but simply for financial reasons—to save money. In our view the way in which medicines should be dispensed is a decision to be made by doctors in conjunction with patients and pharmacists based on clinical and safety not financial reasons. The Minister claims that consumers will benefit from this proposal. What she has not told the public is that many people will find that their drugs will cost a lot more under the proposal because if general practitioners believe that a drug on the 3-monthly list should be prescribed 1-monthly to protect their patients’ safety then both the patients and the pharmacists will lose their subsidy on those medicines and the price of those drugs will skyrocket. How I wonder will that increase consumer choice?  
The Green Party objects not only to the proposal but to the devious—indeed secretive and manipulative—way it has been developed the phoney nature of the consultation process Pharmac has engaged in and the fact that Pharmac is clearly determined to push ahead with the proposal regardless of the outcome of consultation even if it means significant closures of pharmacies all around New Zealand. The Green Party has obtained leaked confidential papers that reveal that Pharmac has already made up its mind and is determined to proceed no matter what. It has developed a series of public relations and legal strategies to counter oppositions to its strategy and an implementation plan for the switch to 3-monthly dispensing. The interesting thing is that those detailed strategies were drawn up before Pharmac had even announced the proposal let alone begun to consult on it.  
The Green Party wants to know why the Minister is not stepping into what has become a major dispute and why she is not looking at the wider implications for the entire sector. She has explicit powers to do so and can give any directive she wants to Pharmac and she is ultimately responsible for its operations.