Shane Reti: Non-subsidised chemotherapy care for children with cancer in public hospital clarified

Dr Shane Reti's private members' bill will have its first reading in parliament in a few months.

FROM PARLIAMENT

Recently we got a small win for children with cancer that will have a big impact. Crown Law and the Attorney General confirmed that my private members' bill would allow children with cancer to keep getting their chemotherapy in a public hospital. This is a big win for cancer children.

Children with cancer who are taking some chemotherapy cancer medicines are technically not allowed to have them administered in a public hospital. This is solely because they are not subsidised by Pharmac and the alternative can be up to $1000 a week.

The responsibility is with a single sentence of legislation that few remember why it even exists and that my bill would remove. For children with cancer there has thankfully been an exception for many years called the 8.1b Paediatric Oncology exception which covered their treatment in public hospitals.

Earlier this year however there was a complaint that this practice was discriminatory and why should children with cancer receive this public benefit when children with other medical conditions did not.

The intention here was to widen the benefit to all children with serious conditions but instead the Government signalled that what they might do is simply remove the exception for children with cancer so that instead of everyone getting something no one got anything.

The Government described how in practice this would only apply to newly diagnosed children with cancer but this was little reassurance for parents and cancer advocates and the discrimination question remained unanswered.

To be clear, the Government was proposing that newly diagnosed children with cancer who were prescribed a medicine not subsidised by Pharmac, would not be able to have it administered in a DHB, and that this would stop with the effect that families would need to pay upwards of $1000 a week instead to private cancer centres.

My cancer bill addressing this was drawn recently and as a consequence the Government had to more formally address the question of whether having an exception for children with cancer to get their cancer chemotherapy in a public hospital was in fact discriminatory or not.

Crown Law has recently advised the Attorney General that on balance, the effect of my bill to allow cancer patients to have their cancer chemotherapy in a public hospital is consistent with the Bill of Rights.

This is a marvellous win for children, for children with cancer and indeed for everyone with cancer. Even before my bill gets to the house we have been able to achieve clarity and set legal precedence around heavyweight foundational legislation such as the Bill of Rights.

Getting cancer chemotherapy administered in a public hospital is not discriminatory. This should keep our cancer children safe. Now we need to extend the benefit to everyone with cancer.

My bill comes to its first reading in parliament in a few months. All that myself, cancer advocates and the NZ Cancer Society are asking for is that the Labour government send this bill to select committee so that people can be heard and tell their stories. That is all.

Now we have the weight of the Bill of Rights behind us this seems like a reasonable step and I am humbled to carry this torch for our children.

• Dr Shane Reti is deputy leader of the National Party and a list MP based in Whangārei.