Te Whatu Ora has 60 million rapid antigen tests left in stock. Photo / Warren Buckland
Te Whatu Ora has 60 million rapid antigen tests left in stock. Photo / Warren Buckland
The Government is being accused of “mind-boggling” mismanagement because it has $531 million worth of rapid antigen tests (RATs) still in stock.
But Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says it was right to buy a large number of RATs in the face of the uncertain nature of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Verrall confirmed Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand’s RATs stocks in answer to a written parliamentary question from Act Party deputy leader Brooke van Velden.
Number of rapid antigen tests and their expiry date.
Te Whatu Ora has almost 60 million RATs around the country, with 30 per cent of them already expired or due to expire by the end of July. The total cost of all of these RATs, at almost $9 each on average, is $530 million.
Verrall has already told Te Whatu Ora to “get on with” finding some use for the 17.8 million RATs that are considered to be “expired stock”. Almost all of the remaining 42 million RATs - considered “usable stock” - are not due to expire until early 2024.
It’s unclear how many of these will be used before they expire, given that Covid-19 is now endemic and there isn’t such an emphasis on getting tested if you’re sick - though people are still expected to test themselves if they are living with someone who has it, and then isolate if they test positive.
A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said they were considering an approach to market to look at options for getting rid of the RATs that aren’t used.
“An approach to market could seek existing recycling and disposal options as well as potentially innovative and creative sustainable waste management solutions.”
The spokesperson said only 3.1 million RATs were distributed in the period from May 12 to June 18 this year.
But van Velden, also Act’s health spokeswoman, said the amount of money involved showed a disregard for the good use of taxpayers’ money.
“Half a billion dollars, to put that into context, is half of Pharmac’s annual budget,” she told the Herald.
Asked if it was better to be safe than sorry and to have ordered a large stock of RATs in case they were needed, she said the Government could have hedged the risk by loosening its virtual monopoly on importing bulk numbers of RATs.
Act deputy leader Brooke van Velden. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“We could have saved all of this wasteful spending by just allowing private companies to import RATs when New Zealanders wanted them,” she said.
“They would have reached into their own pockets to import RATs, and carried that risk. Instead the Government decided everyone should have them but only the Government would import them. It just shows a mind-boggling level of mismanagement from our health department.”
Verrall said allowing more players to import bulk numbers of RATs could have led to price-gouging at a time when it was important to know where the virus was circulating. This could have been particularly harmful in poorer areas, where Covid-19 tended to gain traction and spread more rapidly, due to several factors including more crowded housing.
“The decision was made to ensure people were protected from price-gouging and make sure everyone had access to RATs to keep themselves safe,” Verrall said.
More than 122 million RATs had been used in New Zealand throughout the pandemic so far,” she added.
“I stand by the Government’s Covid-19 pandemic response. We made the decision to be as prepared for the ongoing pandemic as possible, and stock was purchased to prepare us in the face of significant risk and uncertainty.”
Under questioning from Act in the House last week, Verrall said a single provider had kept the 17.8 million expired RATs in storage, along with personal protective equipment, since January last year. The storage cost from January 2022 to April 2023 was $44.27m - or roughly $10,000 a day.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In an interview with the Herald last week, Verrall said that Te Whatu Ora needed “to get on with” finding ways to recover or repurpose the cost of 1.78m expired RATs.
But she hadn’t set a timeline for when a solution should be found.
“They need to get on with it because there’s a cost of storage as well.”
Te Whatu Ora has said that large quantities of RATs were first purchased in late 2021 and early 2022 during the Delta outbreak and in preparation for the new strain that became Omicron.
“Ensuring compliance with Covid-19 pandemic response settings while supporting New Zealand to be able to reopen and remove mandates had a strong influence on quantities purchased,” Te Whatu Ora said.
But that also meant there was a risk of being left with excess stock.
“As policy settings, Border Orders and other testing requirements have changed over time, demand has reduced but planning and consideration has been given to how wastage can be minimised.”
Te Whatu Ora could not provide any examples of solutions it was considering for how to use RATs that had expired or were set to expire.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started working for the Herald in 2004. He has done several stints in the Press Gallery, starting in 2010, and is a former deputy political editor.
