Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is visiting a South Auckland health centre where the expanded range of cancer drugs will be administered.
The Government recently announced a $604 million funding boost for Pharmac to allow the drug-buying agency to fund 26 cancer treatments and 28 other medicines.
The announcement came after weeks of uncertainty and anguish from patients and advocacy organisations after National’s promise to fund 13 specific cancer drugs was absent from this year’s Budget.
The prime minister will hold a press conference following a tour of the Manukau SuperClinic this afternoon around 2pm.
The health centre provides specialist outpatient appointments and day procedures, including cancer treatment.
It comes in the same week as Health Minister Shane Reti sacked the entire Health NZ board and replaced it with a commissioner over a spending blowout.
Reti described the directive as the “strongest ministerial intervention available” under the Pae Ora Act. Health NZ was currently overspending at the rate of approximately $130 million a month.
Professor Lester Levy, the recently appointed chair of Health New Zealand, was appointed Commissioner for a 12-month term.
The increased schedule of drugs was expected to cost $604m over the next four years - $108m this financial year, $146m in 2025/26 and $175m for each of the following two years. The money was a pre-commitment against next year’s Budget.
An additional $38m would also be spent delivering the treatments this year. Delivery costs for the following three years hadn’t been established.
National’s cancer drug promise ended up costing double the $280 million it had initially cost the policy at over a four-year period – and funding other medicines as well.
The government’s Budget was missing the $70 million National included in its pre-election policy last year - something that prompted disappointment from cancer patients and organisations.
The funding needed to supply 13 new cancer drugs National promised before the election won’t become available for another year at least
Health Minister Shane Reti claimed his party’s policy to provide those new drugs hadn’t changed because the mechanism promised to fund them - reinstating prescription co-payments - hadn’t taken effect yet.
