Breast cancer was well represented at this morning’s launch of the My Life Matters campaign. Twenty patient advocate organisations turned up representing over 1 million NZ patients needing unfunded medicines. With the tagline ‘You are one diagnosis away from moving to Australia’, the campaign is a call to action that aims to raise awareness, promote policy changes and engage politicians to ensure there is equitable access to essential medicines for all kiwis. The campaign will hold a series of events throughout the country over the next few weeks. Check out the schedule here and get along to add your voice to the call to address New Zealand’s medicines crisis.
BCAC has long campaigned for greater access to breast cancer medicines, and over the years we have had some success. However, NZ is still at the bottom of the OECD for public funding of modern medicines, there was only one breast cancer medicine on Te Aho o Te Kahu’s list of recommended cancer medicines and one (Abraxane) on Pharmac’s latest ‘wish list’. There are currently over 20 breast cancer medicines that are recommended by international guidelines but not funded in Aotearoa. You can read more about the current situation in New Zealand here and here.
