‘A huge step backwards’: National to restore $5 prescription fees

National and Act want the $5 prescription fee reinstated but Māori pharmacists say it is a bad move.

National has promised to scrap free prescriptions and restore the $5 fee but Māori Pharmacists Association Ngā Kaitiaki o Te Puna Rongoā o Aotearoa head Mariana Hudson says this will be a huge step backwards.

“Many, many steps backwards,” she says.

Under National, only Gold and Community Card holders will be exempt from paying for prescriptions.

The owner of Horouta Pharmacy in Tūranga, Kevin Pēwhairangi, says rural families will be most affected.

“It doesn’t make sense to me that people who are on benefits, people who are elderly and on pensions, people who get money from the government, have to give it back to the government,” he says.

Hudson adds: “It could work if it becomes a targeted approach but how it is actually created, monitored and evaluated is a very very important part of that.”

National wants to use the extra $280 million a year from prescription fees to help fund cancer medicines.

“I don’t think it is a valid reason,” Pēwhairangi says.

“I think they need to find the money from somewhere else because, yes, those families do need the cancer treatments but not at the sacrifice of what is an issue right now.”