Posted by Michael Wonder on 03 Dec 2019
Patient advocacy group demands doubling of PHARMAC budget to fund life-saving treatments
3 December 2019 - A group of patient advocates are calling for PHARMAC's billion-dollar budget to be doubled so it can buy more life-saving and life-prolonging drugs for sick Kiwis.
Patient Voice Aotearoa launched its campaign on Tuesday, accusing the Government of sitting on a $7.5 billion surplus and waiting for a "rainy day" while people are dying because drugs that could help them aren't funded in New Zealand.
The group is chaired by Malcolm Mulholland, whose wife Wiki has stage-4 breast cancer.
The campaign - "All I want for Christmas is to live" - calls on New Zealanders to sign a petition asking the Government to double PHARMAC's funding and look at reforming the agency.
