The Cruellest Decision Made By Health New Zealand

Today it has been reported that Health New Zealand will block 20 to 30 cancer patients from receiving Keytruda over the next two months until the drug is funded by Pharmac on October 1.  Keytruda will then be funded to treat five cancers:  head and neck, triple negative breast, colorectal, bladder and Hodgkin lymphoma.  Drug company Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) have been working on an early access scheme where eligible patients can be referred by oncologists to receive the medicine for free.  The decision means that patients diagnosed over the next two months will receive less effective treatments, which for some will make them ineligible to receive the best treatment when it becomes available.

“This has to be the cruellest and dumbest decision made by Health New Zealand to date” states Chair of Patient Voice Aotearoa, Malcolm Mulholland.  “Here we have patients with terminal cancer being denied the best-in-class treatment for free that takes less infusion time in comparison with other available treatments, all because of Health New Zealand’s inability to plan.  What astounds me even more is that such schemes have existed in the past with no problem.  Last year when the same drug was being funded for lung cancer patients, an early access scheme was established for 150 patients.  Why, suddenly, can our hospitals not cope with an additional 20 to 30 patients around the country?  This is bureaucracy gone mad. 

“What this proves is that New Zealand must have one of the most dysfunctional health systems in the world.  If Pharmac, Health New Zealand, MSD, clinicians and patient advocates were invited to sit in the same room and discuss the rollout of Keytruda, then we may have been able to avoid the sad predicament cancer patients now find themselves in.  By not having those discussions ahead of time, we are continuing to fail society’s most vulnerable.

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