Subj : Cancer treatments to be funded 'as soon as we can' - Reti
To   : All
From : News
Date : Wed Jun 12 2024 01:29 pm

Tuesday 8:55pm

Instead of an apology for a broken Government promise to fund new cancer
drugs, the Health Minister has offered "encouragement that we will be funding
new cancer treatments as soon as we can".


The Government vowed to fund the cancer drugs at the election, with the cost
of $280 million over four years, but its promise was not fulfilled on Budget
Day.


Cancer patient Richard told Checkpoint last night that the Government was
prioritising "potholes over patients".


He has been self-funding the life extending cancer treatment Cetuximab, one
of the 13 of potentially funded cancer drugs listed by the Government. The
additional cancer drug is costing Richard a total of $50,000.


Speaking to Checkpoint this evening, Reti was asked if he would like to
apologise to cancer patients who thought the Government were going to deliver
on its cancer drugs promise, Reti instead offered encouragement that new
cancer treatments would be funded "as soon as we possibly can".


The Health Minister says the Government "could have communicated better"
about whether it was funding 13 additional cancer treatments starting this
year.


"Obviously, funding cancer drugs is a priority for us, we are working really
hard to progress that commitment."


Reti said the Government "could've probably indicated we had this in
progress, that it is still in front of us".


He said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said the Government will make an
announcement this year and they were looking to do this "as soon as possible".


"There will be a procurement process, there's some infrastructure that we
need to develop as well, particularly for people who need intravenous
administration, so we are working through all that complexity as we speak,"
he told Checkpoint.


"We're taking a short period of time to make sure we are getting this exactly
right."


Reti said procurement processes and setting up infrastructure took a period
of time, but the government was moving at a fast rate.


"We didn't have the tools of government to determine some of the things we
need to determine when we were making the decisions we were making."


He said the Government was working with Health New Zealand, and Pharmac was
one of the options the Government was considering for the administration of
the cancer treatments.


Reti said the Government was still working through other options and will
announce the preferred option later, which could include the creation of a
standalone agency.


"We think the Pharmac model has a lot of opportunities, it's not perfect, we
would like to speed up and be more transparent with some of the Pharmac
processes but it certainly has its merits also."


He said the Government's promise was it would fund more cancer treatments
this year.


rnz.co.nz

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