Morning Report Essentials for Thursday 19 June 2025
Pacific health 10:00 am today
In today's episode, Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaks about plans to evacuate New Zealanders from Israel and Iran. Donald Trump is leaving open the possibility he'll step into the fighting between Israel and Iran. New Zealand has paused its core sector support funding for the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year. Magic mushroom drug psilocybin will soon be available for patients with treatment-resistant depression. And we cross to Australia for our weekly chat with Kerry-Anne Walsh.
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RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Morning Report Essentials for Thursday 19 June 2025
Pacific health 10:00 am today In today's episode, Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaks about plans to evacuate New Zealanders from Israel and Iran. Donald Trump is leaving open the possibility he'll step into the fighting between Israel and Iran. New Zealand has paused its core sector support funding for the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year. Magic mushroom drug psilocybin will soon be available for patients with treatment-resistant depression. And we cross to Australia for our weekly chat with Kerry-Anne Walsh.
RNZ News
8 hours ago
- RNZ News
Private hospitals' use of publicly-funded cancer drugs will widen inequities, warn doctors
Under 'transitional access' private patients won't have to shift to the public system for 12 months. Photo: 123RF A move to allow private patients to access publicly-funded cancer drugs threatens to increase wait times for those in the public system, warn senior doctors. Under "transitional access", which comes into effect on 1 July, private patients who are already receiving treatment - or about to start treatment - with a newly funded medicine will not have to shift to the public system for 12 months. Associate Health Minister David Seymour, who has championed the rule change, said it would lessen stress on private patients by enabling continuity of care, and pressure on the public system which would no longer have to deal with a sudden influx of patients. However, the move has been criticised by opposition politicians as "a subsidy for private insurers", which already cover the cost of medicines newly funded by Pharmac, and of little benefit to patients. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, which represents 6500 senior hospital doctors and dentists, said its members working in oncology and haematology had "significant concerns" the change would widen inequities for patients. In a letter on June 13 to Pharmac's acting chief executive Brendan Boyle, the union's director of policy and research, Harriet Wild, quoted a briefing to the minister saying the policy change "would not increase volumes of cancer medicines provided in New Zealand, as only the location of treatments will change". "It will simply shift some of the existing capacity to the private system, where patients will need to fund infusion costs out-of-pocket," Wild wrote. "There will be pressure on the public system to ensure a smooth transition in treatment regime, which may mean delaying treatment for other people already waiting on the public list and unable to self-fund to start in private. "This potentially creates a two-tier waiting list and a system where those with more financial resources, will be prioritised for treatment." Furthermore, the shift of resources and inevitable increase in demand was likely to speed up the exodus of staff to the private sector, making public waiting lists even longer. A "back-pocket Q&A" provided to Seymour ahead of a Cabinet meeting on April 7 noted that the current eligibility criteria in the Pharmaceutical Schedule (excluding patients in private settings) was "designed to ensure public funding for medicines was prioritised for those managed in the public health system for cancer treatment, assessed by need, rather than public funding supporting those who chose to access treatment in private facilities. "Often the private treatment is funded from private health insurance that people have paid premiums into." In the same document, the minister said there was no plan to expand the policy to include other types of medicines or treatments "at this stage". "With that said, I've asked the Ministry [of Health] to do further work in this area to explore the possibility of broadening access to all publicly-funded medicines in private facilities - not just newly funded cancer medicines. "I encourage the private health providers and insurance companies to work closely with the ministry to support their understanding of how this might work in practice." Wild said opening access to publicly-funded drugs even wider would pull more staff away from the public system, reducing access for the majority who relied on it. "That would establish a system where a patient's ability to receive timely cancer care would depend on whether they could afford the out-of-pocket infusion costs." The government's 2024 Budget boost to Pharmac to widen access to medicines for patients had not been accompanied by extra resources for Te Whatu Ora to deliver the treatments, when public oncology services were already swamped with demand, Wild said. "Our members are increasingly needing to manage deteriorating patients, who are unable to access chemotherapy infusions in clinically acceptable timeframes. "This is unacceptable and represents a significant failure to invest in a planned and co-ordinated way to enable the public system to meet the needs of cancer patients, including those eligible for newly funded cancer medicines. "Whenever a new cancer drug is funded, it must be accompanied by an increase in the full package of care (staffing, infusion space, pharmacy) so that patients can actually receive the medicines within clinically acceptable timeframes." The Health Minister and David Seymour's office have been approached for comment. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Psilocybin approved for depression
The government has announced the 'magic mushroom' drug psilocybin will become available for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Psychiatrist, Cameron Lacey, spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
