Larry Williams Drive

I suspect we might come to regret the changes that are about to be made to Pharmac.As a result of the review of Pharmac out today, the Government is about to change something quite fundamental about Pharmac. Up till now, Pharmac has tried to get the best health outcomes from available funding which essentially means trying to help as many Kiwis as possible with the limited money it has. So, let’s say it had $100 to spend on cancer treatment. Up till now what it would do is buy cancer drugs for let’s say 100 of us. But now, its criteria is being changed. And it has to consider whether it’s doing enough to help "priority" populations, being Māori, Pacifica and disabled communities. So, instead of helping 100 of us, it now might have to spend that $100 on helping, say, only 5 of us. Which means this actually increases the number of us who miss out on drugs. The example that’s used is that Pharmac funds Keytruda for melanoma but not lung cancer. Māori don’t get melanoma as much but they do get more lung cancer, s