Patient advocates are accusing Health New Zealand of "cruelty" towards a small group of cancer patients who are being forced to wait two more months for a newly-funded drug.
Pharmac has agreed to fund the medicine Keytruda from October 1 to treat five cancers: head and neck, triple negative breast, colorectal, bladder and Hodgkin lymphoma.
Patient Voice Aotearoa chair Malcolm Mulholland said the drug company Merck Sharp and Dohme had offered to give 20 to 30 patients free access in the meantime, but Health New Zealand had blocked it.
"This has to be the cruellest and dumbest decision made by Health New Zealand to date," he said.
"Here we have patients with terminal cancer being denied the best-in-class treatment for free that takes less infusion time in comparison with other available treatments, all because of Health New Zealand's inability to plan.
"What astounds me even more is that such schemes have existed in the past with no problem."
Last year when Keytruda was funded for lung cancer, an early access scheme was set up for 150 patients.
"Why, suddenly, can our hospitals not cope with an additional 20 to 30 patients around the country? This is bureaucracy gone mad."
For some patients, the October funding could come too late because their health may deteriorate to the point where they were no longer eligible for Keytruda, Mulholland said.
The disjointed, "dysfunctional", health system was failing the most vulnerable patients.
"If Pharmac, Health New Zealand, MSD, clinicians and patient advocates were invited to sit in the same room and discuss the rollout of Keytruda, then we may have been able to avoid the sad predicament cancer patients now find themselves in."
Health New Zealand has been approached for comment.
Meanwhile, Pharmac has just announced plans to fund another bowel cancer drug - cetuximab - from November.
