Last week Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ Budget crushed the hopes of many of my cancer patients.
Having been promised drug funding for 13 new cancer agents pre-election, there was no mention of this in the announcements and those who had been holding on to hope that we would have more treatments will be distraught but not altogether surprised. They will have to wait a while longer.
Governments do have to make difficult choices around what their priorities are but it seems that for this government the priority is not around improving cancer care in New Zealand.
They campaigned on reinstituting prescription charges to pay for new cancer drugs and the prescription charges are back but the new drugs are not coming.
So like Ebenezer Scrooge, the coalition has condemned my patients to Christmas Past — no new treatments and reverting to the old failed targets of faster cancer care (noting that the fine print is this target does not have to be met until 2030, so no hurry).
This Budget has removed Christmas Present by not giving current standard treatments which are available world-wide to patients here who need them now.
And they have already removed Christmas Yet to Come by repealing the smokefree legislation, so many cancers which are preventable through smoking cessation will remain a feature of our future cancer spectrum.
The drugs which National had campaigned on funding were from a study carried out in 2021 which is a long time in terms of cancer progress.
It is sadly ironic timing that King’s Birthday weekend after the Budget coincided with the annual American Oncology conference where they discussed the latest progress in international cancer care.
They are presenting new treatments which will see us two or more steps behind the rest of Western world for anti-cancer treatment.
So in my upcoming clinics this week I will discuss with patients whether they can afford to pay for these unfunded cancer treatments (most can’t) or whether to move to Australia for better drug access (most won’t).
For some of these drugs I will discuss whether they wish to source them from pharmacies in India where they are cheaper (most still can’t) or whether they simply go without, knowing that their outlook will be worse.
These conversations are hard on everyone involved but it appears to be a surprise to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Ms Willis that cancer patients see this as their priority.
Perhaps in the coming weeks we will see an announcement that they have somehow decided this is important. The backlash may prompt a rethink but it makes one wonder about the government’s lack of insight into what it means to have cancer in New Zealand
So we will wait a little longer for cancer progress in this country.
We will wait a little longer for a coherent plan for how they are going to improve cancer outcomes and we will wait a little longer for National’s new improved smoking cessation strategy to be articulated.
It is a tragedy that some of our patients will not be around to see these plans eventually be presented. They voted hoping for something better than this nothing.
This government does not seem to care about cancer care.
- Dr Blair McLaren is a Dunedin cancer specialist.
