KEY POINTS:
A High Court decision means New Zealanders will continue to be denied treatment they could expect to receive overseas, the Cancer Society says.
The High Court at Wellington yesterday turned down an application for interim relief from eight women seeking funding for the breast cancer drug Herceptin.
"The court's hands were tied by Pharmac's (the government's drug buying agency) own internal criteria that prevented New Zealanders getting appropriate access to medicines that are regarded as essential overseas," Cancer Society chief executive Dalton Kelly said.
"This decision highlights the problems New Zealand cancer sufferers face with the current Pharmac funding and procurement policies."
Mr Kelly said it was another wake-up call for the Government to listen to the overwhelming evidence provided by patient groups and clinicians that New Zealand needed a medicines strategy.
The Cancer Society said in its submission on the medicines strategy that, in addition to adequate funding, there must be real transparency in decision-making about all important drugs and innovative treatments.
It expected this would be the first in a series of disappointing and potentially tragic decisions caused by the parsimonious attitude of the district health boards, government and Pharmac regarding funding and access to modern medicines.
Pharmac welcomed the decision and said a further hearing would now be held regarding a wider claim by the women.
The agency is subsidising Herceptin treatment for nine weeks but the women want it for 12 months.
The women in the court case are funding their own Herceptin treatment.
In March they applied for Pharmac funding of their treatment under a Cancer Exceptional Circumstances policy to get access to drugs not covered by Pharmac's schedule and were knocked back.
They appealed and were again turned down.
Yesterday's judgment said that for the High Court to grant interim relief on an application for judicial review, it must be of the opinion that the order is needed to preserve the position of the applicant.
The women were receiving Herceptin treatment for early stage breast cancer and "the position which should be preserved is that each should continue to receive that treatment".
Justice Alan Mackenzie preferred Pharmac's position that as none of the women was receiving public funding there was no position to preserve under the law.
The wider claim still to be heard related to Pharmac's decision to subsidise nine weeks of Herceptin.
- NZPA
