Access To Medicines Coalition (ATM)
MEDIA RELEASE: May 17, 2007
Budget disappointing for medicines access
The extra $5.4m allocated in this year’s Budget for community-based pharmaceuticals is a drop in the bucket, says the
Access To Medicines (ATM) Coalition, and doesn’t address the significant issues the New Zealand public has in accessing
medicines.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen announced today at Parliament that government drug buying agency PHARMAC is to receive
an additional $20m in funding this year, with $14m going toward hospital-based cancer treatments, and only $5.4m for
other treatments.
“This is, of course, great news for cancer sufferers, but there are many New Zealanders needing access to medications
for other conditions that are no better off with this Budget,” says ATM spokesman John Forman. “This increase amounts to
less than 1% of PHARMAC’s total budget for community pharmaceuticals.”
ATM says New Zealand has been falling behind other OECD countries in terms of timely access to medicines for some time.
“We are clearly underperforming by comparison with Australia and other Western countries,” John Forman says. “For this
Budget to make a real difference, we needed to see a significant increase in the total amount of money available for
community-based medicines, not just a tiny piece of the pie.”
ATM combines the voices of 26 non-government organisations advocating for increased access to medicines in New Zealand.
Members of the coalition are all disease-specific groups that provide support, information/education, health promotion
or clinical services to their constituent groups.
ENDS