Latest news with #MalcolmMulholland
Scoop
21-07-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Pharmac Continues To Engage With Consumers
Associate Minister of Health Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes the establishment of Pharmac's new consumer working group to help Pharmac help reset how it works with health consumers. "For many New Zealanders, funding for pharmaceuticals is life or death, or the difference between a life of pain and suffering or living freely,' Mr Seymour says. 'My expectation is that Pharmac should have good processes to ensure that people with an illness, their carers and family, can provide input to decision-making processes. This is part of the ACT-National Coalition Agreement. 'Pharmac hosted a Consumer Engagement Workshop in March. Patients and advocates voiced their hopes at resetting the patient – Pharmac relationship. Pharmac published a report on the findings from the workshop. 'The report recommended that the Board invite workshop participants, in association with the wider consumer-patient representative community, to select a working group. The group would work with Pharmac's Board and management to reset the relationship between Pharmac and the consumer/representative community. 'The patient advocacy community selected Dr Malcolm Mulholland to lead the consumer working group. He has worked with consumers to select the other members of the working group. These members represent patients with a wide range of health conditions. They are named at the end of this release.' 'We've waited a long time for this opportunity. The work that Pharmac does is vitally important for the health of patients and their families, and this is why getting Pharmac to work as well as it can, will be the focus of the working group,' Dr Mulholland says. 'The consumer working group met for the first time yesterday to confirm the approach for the reset programme and agree the first set of actions. I look forward to hearing about their progress,' Mr Seymour says. 'I'm pleased to see the Board take the opportunity to continue to prioritise expanding opportunities and access for patients and their families by expanding access to more medicines for more groups. 'The working group reflects our commitment to a more adaptable and patient-centred approach. It follows my letters of expectations, the consumer engagement workshop, last year's Medicines Summit, and the acceptance of Patient Voice Aotearoa's White Paper as actions to achieve this. 'The Government is doing its part. Last year we allocated Pharmac its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, and a $604 million uplift to give Pharmac the financial support it needs to carry out its functions - negotiating the best deals for medicine for New Zealanders.' The consumer working group members are: Dr Malcolm Mulholland MNZM – Patient Voice Aotearoa Libby Burgess MNZM – Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition Tim Edmonds – Leukaemia and Blood Cancer NZ Chris Higgins – Rare Disorders NZ Francesca Holloway – Arthritis NZ Trent Lash – Heartbeats Charitable Trust Gerard Rushton – The Meningitis Foundation Rachel Smalley MNZM – The Medicine Gap Tracy Tierney – Epilepsy NZ Deon York – Haemophilia NZ
Scoop
21-07-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Consumer And Patient Working Group To Help Pharmac Reset
Patient advocate, Dr Malcolm Mulholland, has been appointed Chair of the new Consumer and Patient Working Group that will help Pharmac reset how it works with consumers. Pharmac has committed to a 12-month reset programme to become a more outward-focussed and transparent organisation. This is in response to multiple external reviews over the last few years which sought transformational change in Pharmac. The new working group, made up of the consumer and patient community, will decide what Pharmac focuses on for the reset programme, taking a hands-on role in the delivery of the work to ensure it reflects consumers' needs, values, and perspectives. Acting Pharmac Chief Executive, Brendan Boyle, said Dr Mulholland was selected by the patient advocacy community to lead the group, and brings a lot of mana to the role. 'We are grateful that Malcolm, and the other nine members of the working group, have offered to partner with us to help us get the Pharmac reset work right.' Dr Mulholland said, 'We've waited a long time for this opportunity. The work that Pharmac does is vitally important for the health of patients and their families, and this is why getting Pharmac to work as well as it can, will be the focus of the working group.' The working group had their first meeting on Monday 21 July at the Pharmac offices in Wellington. They finalised the group's terms of reference, confirmed the approach for the reset programme, and agreed the first set of actions to focus on. The Consumer and Patient Working Group members are: Dr Malcolm Mulholland MNZM – Patient Voice Aotearoa Libby Burgess MNZM – Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition Tim Edmonds – Leukaemia and Blood Cancer NZ Chris Higgins – Rare Disorders NZ Francesca Holloway – Arthritis NZ Trent Lash – Heartbeats Charitable Trust Gerard Rushton – The Meningitis Foundation Rachel Smalley MNZM – The Medicine Gap Tracy Tierney – Epilepsy NZ
RNZ News
19-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Budget could be 'matter of life or death' for some patients, advocate says
Patient Voice Aotearoa chair Malcolm Mulholland. Photo: RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham For some cancer patients, the Budget could literally be a matter of life-or-death. Patient Voice Aotearoa chair Malcolm Mulholland will lead a delegation of blood cancer patients to Parliament on Thursday to see if the Budget will deliver on the government's promise they "won't be forgotten". The backlash after last year's Budget failed to include funding for National's pre-election promise of extra cancer treatments forced the gvernment a couple of months later to produce another $604m for Pharmac over four years. That welcome investment allowed Pharmac to fund a range of drugs for patients with solid tumours - but increased inequities for blood cancer patients, Mulholland said. "Blood cancer patients haven't had anything. If we look at just multiple myeloma for example, 450 people are diagnosed every year, but there's been no new drug funded since 2014. That to me is criminal." While the previous Health Minister Dr Shane Reti had given his assurances that blood cancer patients "would not be forgotten", his replacement, Simeon Brown, has made no commitments. Brown's only pre-Budget announcement has been an extra $164m for after-hours GPs and urgent care in targeted regions. While welcoming the support, GP leaders noted primary care in general needed a massive cash injection. A Health NZ briefing to Dr Reti in January 2024, projected a $173m shortfall in funding to GPs for the year, and estimated primary care needed a boost of between $353m and $1.4b to address "unmet need". General Practice NZ chair Bryan Betty said the capitation funding model - the way the government funds general practices based on the number and age of enrolled patients - was 20 years old and "no longer fit for purpose". "General practice is faced with a lot more complexity in terms of patients, patients who are not being seen in the hospital and they're expecting general practice to pick up and deal with, and also the volume of what we're actually seeing." General Practice NZ chair Bryan Betty. Photo: Supplied Dr Betty, a family doctor in Porirua, said the last capitation uplift was not enough to cover inflation, so the government allowed GPs to raise their fees. "There is concern about the amount of money people are paying to see their GP now, so I think we have to avoid shifting cost to patients." However, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, which represents senior hospital doctors and dentists, said there was not a single area of health, which was not "desperate" for more money. Its director of policy and research, Harriet Wild, said there was little point pumping more money into primary care without balancing it up with more investment in secondary services. "For example, if you're going to invest in primary care, but you're not going to invest in secondary and hospital care, you're going to get more people needing and gaining hospital referrals to have their conditions managed and treated. But if there isn't a complementary investment in secondary care, there's not going to be anyone to manage them." With every health budget, it was "not so much where the money is going - it's where it's coming from", she noted. "It's all about savings, it's all about ending time-limited funding. Re-appropriating is the name of the game. And I think we'll continue to see more of that in 2025." Last year's Budget included an extra $16b over four years to meet cost pressures. However, Wild said that was not enough. Analysis by leading health economist Peter Huskinson found day-to-day government spend per person on health actually dropped 3 percent last year. "We are estimating that Budget 2025 is going to need an extra $2b in operational funding, just to stand still," Wild said. "Our members are constantly being asked to do more with less, and then they're asked to do more again." Health systems expert Professor Robin Gauld - who moved from Otago to Bond University in Australia this year - said there was never enough money for health. Health systems expert Professor Robin Gauld. Photo: RNZ / Ian Telfer "And [what] governments will always claim is big new investments, which there probably is - but it will be dealing with shortfalls and inflation adjustments and targeted to certain areas." Instead of just shovelling more money into a broken system, the government needed to fund research to re-design it, Professor Gauld said. He has proposed a national health insurance model like Singapore's (which works a bit like ACC), which would take the health budget out of the hands of politicians. "In Singapore, they're working really hard to solve problems with a long-range view. It's not a political bun-fight or a game like it is in New Zealand. "Here's it's a political game for people who then walk away and go on to other jobs, having said that they did 'a great job'. "They blame their successors, and their successors blame the forebears, instead of all working together in a Singaporean way to try and actually improve population health and the system that supports it." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
19-05-2025
- Health
- Scoop
More Doctorless Or Closed Hospitals In NZ?
Press Release: Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) has been provided information, detailing the extreme staff shortages rural hospitals in New Zealand are faced with. The following table shows the advertised need for locums in our rural hospitals over the coming months. A description of 'open to any availability' or 'open to availability', means the hospital is in extreme need of one or more locums. PVA is aware that the three hospitals that are in the Far North (Dargaville, Bay of Islands, and Kaitaia) have been doctorless and have relied on telehealth services when patients have presented to ED. Gisborne Hospital has the highest doctor vacancy rate in the country at 44%, and Southland Hospital is experiencing a shortage of 18%. Nelson Hospital's staffing woes have been well reported over the past few months, with patients missing out on vital procedures and operations. Te Rau Kawakawa (Westport) had shut its doors for a month during the first year of operation for the new facility last year, as did Oamaru Hospital several times in 2023 after being unable to source a locum. Last year, a shortage of doctors at Greymouth Hospital almost saw the facility shut its doors in November, and more than once staff at Taupo Hospital had to draw contingency plans to shut their doors over the course of the previous year, again due to the shortage of doctors. Masterton Hospital ED has had to 'effectively close their doors' due to there being no beds available to admit patients to, was short by some 40 nurses last year, and had two orthopaedic surgeons resign. Whakatane has had to close its obstetrics and gynaecology service due to having no specialists in the field, and hospital staff now fear the closure of the mental health ward due to only having one psychiatrist. Whakatane ED will be staffed up to 50% when three American doctors arrive in August and September this year and the hospital only has one orthopaedic specialist on call for three or four days a week. Thames Hospital has been reliant on locums for some time, as they require over 12 full time equivalent senior medical officers and only have just over 5, and they are also short of medical officers. Timaru Hospital is struggling to recruit doctors in the fields of palliative care and anaesthesia. Wairau Hospital is low on staff overall and is struggling to recruit more, especially into paediatric care. States Chair of PVA, Malcolm Mulholland, who has been touring the country and engaging with hospital staff from rural hospitals 'It's bad enough to be so reliant on locums, but what happens if these positions cannot be filled? Are hospitals then reliant on resident medical officers, a nurse, or telehealth services? Will hospitals be doctorless or shut, as has the case in the Far North, Westport or Oamaru? Yesterday the Minister of Health announced a plan for 24/7 urgent care services. Some of the locations listed are where rural hospitals are situated that are struggling to recruit doctors. What will happen if an urgent care doctor refers a patient to a local hospital where there is no doctor? I sincerely hope that this week's budget deals with the real issue of why we can't recruit and retain doctors in our hospitals. Our government needs to pay them substantially more, so we can compete on the international market to attract their services, which in turn, will hopefully create a critical mass of doctors. If the Government fails to tackle the issue, we will start to see more doctorless hospitals or more hospitals shut their doors.
Scoop
19-05-2025
- Health
- Scoop
More Doctorless Or Closed Hospitals In NZ?
Press Release: Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) has been provided information, detailing the extreme staff shortages rural hospitals in New Zealand are faced with. The following table shows the advertised need for locums in our rural hospitals over the coming months. A description of 'open to any availability' or 'open to availability', means the hospital is in extreme need of one or more locums. PVA is aware that the three hospitals that are in the Far North (Dargaville, Bay of Islands, and Kaitaia) have been doctorless and have relied on telehealth services when patients have presented to ED. Gisborne Hospital has the highest doctor vacancy rate in the country at 44%, and Southland Hospital is experiencing a shortage of 18%. Nelson Hospital's staffing woes have been well reported over the past few months, with patients missing out on vital procedures and operations. Te Rau Kawakawa (Westport) had shut its doors for a month during the first year of operation for the new facility last year, as did Oamaru Hospital several times in 2023 after being unable to source a locum. Last year, a shortage of doctors at Greymouth Hospital almost saw the facility shut its doors in November, and more than once staff at Taupo Hospital had to draw contingency plans to shut their doors over the course of the previous year, again due to the shortage of doctors. Masterton Hospital ED has had to 'effectively close their doors' due to there being no beds available to admit patients to, was short by some 40 nurses last year, and had two orthopaedic surgeons resign. Whakatane has had to close its obstetrics and gynaecology service due to having no specialists in the field, and hospital staff now fear the closure of the mental health ward due to only having one psychiatrist. Whakatane ED will be staffed up to 50% when three American doctors arrive in August and September this year and the hospital only has one orthopaedic specialist on call for three or four days a week. Thames Hospital has been reliant on locums for some time, as they require over 12 full time equivalent senior medical officers and only have just over 5, and they are also short of medical officers. Timaru Hospital is struggling to recruit doctors in the fields of palliative care and anaesthesia. Wairau Hospital is low on staff overall and is struggling to recruit more, especially into paediatric care. States Chair of PVA, Malcolm Mulholland, who has been touring the country and engaging with hospital staff from rural hospitals 'It's bad enough to be so reliant on locums, but what happens if these positions cannot be filled? Are hospitals then reliant on resident medical officers, a nurse, or telehealth services? Will hospitals be doctorless or shut, as has the case in the Far North, Westport or Oamaru? Yesterday the Minister of Health announced a plan for 24/7 urgent care services. Some of the locations listed are where rural hospitals are situated that are struggling to recruit doctors. What will happen if an urgent care doctor refers a patient to a local hospital where there is no doctor? I sincerely hope that this week's budget deals with the real issue of why we can't recruit and retain doctors in our hospitals. Our government needs to pay them substantially more, so we can compete on the international market to attract their services, which in turn, will hopefully create a critical mass of doctors. If the Government fails to tackle the issue, we will start to see more doctorless hospitals or more hospitals shut their doors.
