Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Getting an annual influenza vaccine can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke by a third, according to the Immunisation Advisory Centre.

The centre said there was a growing amount of evidence which showed that getting the vaccine was about as effective as using common heart medication.

Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death in New Zealand, accounting for 12,000 deaths per year.

Since 2003, strong evidence has emerged demonstrating that the flu vaccine offered substantial cardiovascular protection.

This protection comes directly from reducing the risk and severity of influenza, plus likely further non-specific immune protection.

Dr Philip Shirley from the Immunisation Advisory Centre told Midday Report that it had been known for about 100 years that in a really bad flu season the number of people having heart attacks and strokes increased.

“More recently we’ve been able to show that if you take a swab of someone in the community and they have influenza, they’ve got a six to 10 times the base rate of having a heart attack for the next seven to 10 days after they’re proven to have influenza.”

That happened for two reasons, he said.

The first was if you catch the flu it goes into your nose and then your chest, he said.

“From there the virus can actually relocate, so into your heart and when it gets to your heart it can cause conditions like myocarditis, peridcarditis, kind of inflammation of the heart, but even more concerning it can actually move into the blood vessels.

“When it’s in the blood vessels it can disrupt plaques that are here and disrupted plaques are what causes heart attacks because they rupture, they block the blood vessel, and that’s a heart attack. If it happens in the brain then it’s a stroke.”

Another issue was that the lungs of those suffering from severe influenza did not transport oxygen as well as usual, he said.

“And because your lungs aren’t working properly your heart starts beating faster and harder and that’s a problem – that increases your risk.”

The main way that the influenza vaccine protects people is because it protects you from getting influenza which can cause heart attacks and strokes, he said.

The influenza vaccination also “changes the way that the heart responds to stress and inflammation”, he said.

“They did some really interesting studies where people undergoing open heart surgery, some of them had an influenza vaccine the week before, some of them didn’t.

“And when you measure their inflammatory markers after the operation, the people who had the flu vaccine had less inflammation and they showed less signs of heart stress, after one of the most stressful things you can do to your heart.”

A third way the vaccine helps protect people was with “trained immunity”.

“I think of it like this – if our immune system is responding to things frequently, if we’re getting vaccinated regularly, then the immune system gets stronger, not just against the target disease, but it protects you from a wide range of bio-illnesses.

“Nearly any illness you catch can increase your risk of having a heart attack or a stroke – not as badly as influenza, but it can a bit. And getting the flu vaccine every year seems to protect you from lots of respiratory illnesses.”

Dr Shirley said the biggest benefits of getting the vaccine would be for those with chronic health conditions or were over the age of 65, but there were also benefits for healthier people.

“If you’re a healthy person, getting influenza is no picnic. Your rate of heart attacks and strokes might be low, but even increasing a low risk of heart attacks or strokes by six or 10 times isn’t something I would want to be doing.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Former Interislander ferry Aratere is expected to arrive in Port Nelson later this week for the first time in nearly four months.

RNZ understands the ship, which has since been renamed Vega, will undergo a crew change and be restocked with fuel and provisions.

KiwiRail retired the ferry last August and announced in October it had been sold to a buyer who would deliver it to a shipbreaking yard in India.

Since being renamed Vega, the Interislander logos had been painted over and it is now flagged in the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

It is still not known when the ship will leave the country.

It has been anchored in Tasman Bay since early December with a crew from India, who had been onboard since October.

A Maritime NZ spokesperson said inspectors last visited the vessel in mid-February while it was in Tasman Bay, and planned to do so again while it was berthed in Nelson.

Inspectors had been regularly engaging with Vega, its operator and flag state regarding crew welfare and compliance with international requirements, Maritime NZ said.

“During these visits, inspectors speak directly with crew and assess compliance with relevant international conventions and flag state requirements relating to crew conditions and vessel safety.”

The Maritime Union has previously raised concerns about the wages and living conditions of those onboard.

Nelson branch president Paul Stewart said he understood Vega was coming in to Port Nelson this week for a crew change, to get rid of rubbish and resupply with food and water.

The union was planning to board the ship, if the captain granted permission, to check on the crew’s welfare and ensure they were being paid correctly, Stewart said.

There had been lots of rumours floating around so the union were keen to speak to the crew directly, he said.

“We haven’t had any contact with them. You hear rumours floating around that they’re not getting paid right or one member wants to jump off because the conditions are bad and that sort of thing. So we just want to get on board just to verify everything, pull the crew aside and just have a chat with them and touch base – see how they’re actually doing and get some definitive answers.”

The union had previously said the crew were being paid “significantly below international and domestic benchmarks”.

Whether the ship would leave for India after coming into port or return to anchor in Tasman Bay was the “million dollar question”, Stewart said.

RNZ understands some crew had been swapped out from the ship, with one person flown home to be with a sick family member, while a delivery of five pallets of food supplies was made several months ago.

RNZ understands issues with paperwork for the ship’s entry to India are the reason it had not left New Zealand.

The Environmental Protection Authority last month said the application for the ship’s export was complete but it had not received an update from the Competent Authority in India about the requested import consent.

The authority told RNZ this week it was unable to provide an update.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

More needs to be done to discourage the use of super-sized vehicles in urban areas – and not just because they guzzle far more petrol at a time when there are growing concerns over price and supply, says a University of Auckland professor.

Double cab utes and SUVs are regularly among New Zealand’s top selling new vehicles.

Their capacity to guzzle fuel is in sharp focus at the moment with prices rising at the pump, along with concerns about diesel which largely keeps industry moving, including freight and farming.

Those concerns have led to calls for more regulation to discourage people buying supersized vehicles.

Professor Alistair Woodward – from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences – told Checkpoint that while bigger vehicles are still widely used in rural areas and by tradies in the cities, the big rise in buyers in recent years had been in urban areas.

“They are becoming used more and more as the family vehicle, so their use is pretty widespread.

“What has changed is that they have become very popular as an alternative to cars.”

Woodward said more people needed to be aware of how inefficient the bigger vehicles were – “A Ford Ranger uses roughly twice as much fuel per kilometre as a Toyota Corolla.”

But he said the bigger vehicles created a number of other challenges beyond the petrol pump.

“They are bad for the climate with twice as much carbon monoxide, and they are very nasty if they run into you and cause problems.”

He cited a recent study in the US which found that if a child was struck by a light truck, they were seven times as more likely to die than if they were struck by a car.

He said two ways to discourage the rising number of bigger vehicles on urban streets were things like higher sales taxes, and resisting pressure to supersize parking spaces.

“As these double cab utes and other vehicles get larger, they really have difficulty fitting in what used to be an adequate carpark, they cause overhangs and cause frustrations for drivers.

“Rather than taking up more space for parking, we should do something about restricting the use of supersized vehicles in urban areas.”

But Woodward said there did not appear to be much enthusiasm in the current government to make these kinds of moves.

“The previous government introduced incentives for lower emission vehicles and by implication higher costs for people who buy double cab utes. The present government felt that this was not justified, and they have removed that discount scheme.

“So we’re waiting for good moves, but in the 1970s we downsized our cars because of the oil shocks, so maybe we’ve got something to learn from 50 years ago.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

After a million hours of labour, Te Rua – Archive New Zealand’s brand new Wellington building – is now open.

The 10-level, $290 million building is described as one of the world’s most technologically advanced archive protection facilities and forms part of Te Kahu, a new heritage campus.

The campus, which sees Archives New Zealand and the National Library physically joined, includes Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision and the Alexander Turnbull Library in its wider net.

Delivered on budget and on time, Te Rua has been held up as a win for public-private partnerships, but where the nation’s archives will ultimately be stored – and how much it will cost to do so – remains unclear.

Preserving windows into the past

Under the bright lights of the brand new Te Rua facility, research archivist Shaun McGuire points to a cluster of carefully laid out black and white photographs of the 488 Squadron.

“It was a fighter squadron that was sent to Singapore prior to the outbreak of hostilities with Japan. As you can see from their general posture, they’re green as grass and not particularly military,” he said.

“This chap here playing in the puddle – because it’s monsoonish – is Pete Gifford and the fellow playing with him is Len Farr. They’re both pilot officers.”

McGuire said the Brewster Buffalo planes they flew were outdated by World War II, and while Peter Gifford survived the war, others were not so lucky.

The photographs of the young men are but a taste of the historical material that will eventually be housed in Te Rua.

The bronze-accented state-of-the-art archive facility – boasting more than 19,000sqm of floor space and 90km of storage under tightly controlled environmental condition – will ultimately be home to millions of photographs, films and records, documenting the nation’s political, cultural and social history.

According to Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden, the new facility could not come soon enough.

“I think it’s a really awesome day for New Zealanders because it means that our nation’s history will be preserved. And I have to tell you, a couple of years ago when I went to visit the old archives building I could feel for myself that it was damp and that it was falling apart.”

She said it was “wonderful” that country will have preserved archival material for centuries to come.

“For all our children’s children.”

A public-private partnership

Van Velden, who is also deputy leader of the ACT Party, heralded the facility as a win for public-private partnerships over successive governments, with the contract signed under the previous Labour government.

While the taonga within the building and its fit-out is publicly owned, the building base and land belongs to Canadian Mutual Fund, PSPIB/CPPIB Waiheke Inc. and is managed by Australasian real estate assets manager Dexus – also the developer.

The 25-year lease agreement with the Crown has the option to extend for another 25 years.

A spokesperson for the Department of Internal Affairs said the rent has been fixed – with yearly increases agreed upfront and budgeted for – but the amount can’t be made public due to commercial sensitivity.

Van Velden said given the building’s specifications it would be unlikely for the lease not to be renewed.

She said collaborations between business and the public sector, highlighted the private sector’s expertise.

“Government has a lot of interest and expertise in particular areas, but they’re not building things all the time. They’re not experts in seismic strengthening.”

Dexus portfolio manager for New Zealand Phill Stanley said the Kaikoura earthquake in 2016 was a “learning curve for everyone”.

The site, which previously housed the quake-damaged Defence House, now featured a building on 36 base isolators that could drift up to 1.3m horizontally and up to 300mm vertically, during an earthquake, he said.

In order to meet UNESCO standards, climate control within the building must hold within ±1°C for at least 48 hours in the event of a power failure.

“In layman’s terms, we have built the most beautiful chilly-bin on base isolators.”

He said the project had been a career highlight and hinted at more partnerships with the Crown in the pipeline.

Space for taonga unknown

The relocation of more than 150,000 containers of historical material from the Mulgrave Street facility is currently underway.

A massive undertaking, that chief archivist Poumanaaki Anahera Morehu hoped would be completed by December this year.

However, Te Rua won’t be able to hold all the material – and how much it can take remains to be seen.

National Librarian Te Pouhuaki Rachel Esson said while there were estimates, they won’t truly know until the material has been shifted.

“Part of the process of bringing things over is we’re rehousing them. So some things have been in boxes that aren’t quite as good as they could be, so they’re being put in new boxes.

“Sometimes things have been crammed into a box so they might be split out into two. We’re just not quite sure yet exactly.”

Morehu said the new facility was never going to house everything contained in Mulgrave Street and anticipated the wider heritage campus – Te Kahu – would absorb overflow.

She said access to the archives was just as important as preservation.

“It’s all good to preserve it and hold on to it, but it’s no good if nobody’s got access to it.

“This is creating that opportunity and the campus is creating that opportunity, while it opens the doors to other facilities to think about how we play a role as archives and libraries in making this more collaborative and sharing.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Two bodies have been found inside a car that was discovered upside down in a stream in rural Wellington this morning.

Police, Fire and Emergency and Wellington Free Ambulance were called to the crash in Mākara just after 8am.

Fire and Emergency shift manager Alex Norris said crews arrived to find a car partially submerged in the stream on Mākara Beach Road – a narrow, winding road between Karori and Mākara Beach.

The bodies were found by police when they arrived at the scene.

The road was closed for several hours but has since reopened.

A local resident who did not want to be named said they could see the crash site from their home.

They said they saw at least four police vehicles, two ambulances and a fire appliance attending the crash as well as white blanket laid on the ground.

“Usually you hear stuff a night but we didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Our neighbour told me it’s quite a common place where people go off there’s about a two to three metre drop from the road down to the stream.

“I’ve witnessed cars having a head on collision on the stretch before and a bunch of near misses. I haven’t really had a chance to let it sink in. I’ve talked to some of the locals this morning and they’re really shocked” he said.

The road skirts a small stream bordered by wire fencing down the bank from Mākara Road.

Mākara Village cattery owner Cody Stephens said he saw police cars and a fire engine fly past his property this morning, heading towards the beach.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The local makers of a temporary, reusable dam say it’s got the potential to protect homes, businesses and critical infrastructure across the motu from flooding.

Two councils that have dealt with the fallout from devastating storms time and again have bought Tarpaulin Makers’ ARK flood barriers, which they say are a quick and easy alternative to sandbags.

Wairoa civil defence crews deployed them for the first time last month, when the Hawke’s Bay town was forecast to be hit hard by a storm.

It escaped the worst of the weather so the barriers were not needed, but Mayor Craig Little said it was a good exercise.

“It just gives people a little bit of security,” he said. Plus, it was far easier than filling and lugging hundreds of sandbags around town.

“The cost of the damage from flooding afterwards far outweighs the cost of having those,” said Little.

The 14.5 metre long PVC tubes join together to create a continuous barrier, equivalent to 160 sandbags.

Once they’re filled with water – via a fire hydrant or water truck, in about ten minutes – they’re half a metre high, heavy and strong.

After a flood, they can be emptied, rolled up and stored.

Klint Brittain-Freemantle from Tarpaulin Makers is the brains behind the gear.

Well before he joined the Tauranga-based company he’d seen similar products overseas, but couldn’t find anything home grown so took up the challenge himself.

Living in Napier, he’d witnessed homes under water time and again, and then Cyclone Cook hit in 2017.

“I drove in from home and deployed it out the front of my workshop across our big front roller doors and office.

“The water came right up to the doors, and it basically stopped it getting flooded, the places next door to us got flooded, all through the workshop floors, but we weren’t.”

What’s now known as the ARK flood barrier, sold by Tarpaulin Makers, was born.

Brittain-Freemantle urged local authorities to consider them.

“It’s almost soul-destroying at this point because we’ve got this product that’s so good and we know it works so well, and seeing people getting flooded around the country, like the recent ones in Wairoa [after Cyclone Gabrielle] … something like 400 houses got flooded.

“Even if we would have saved a fraction of that, that’s huge for those people.”

Tarpaulin Makers owner and general manager Beni Hafoka said many communities had big plans for flood resilience infrastructure.

“They might take ten years to put in place, and in the meantime, communities need some short-term solutions,” he said.

“That’s what ARK is.”

While the product would not prevent major flooding, it could be used strategically, he said.

“In [Cyclone] Gabrielle, there was a particular power station that only just flooded up a couple of hundred mil.

“So if we had ARK wrapped around that power station, we save that power station.”

Tairāwhiti civil defence made the first purchase.

For controller Ben Green, it added an element of speed to flood response.

“You don’t have time, you’re dealing with something that’s situational, and the ability to rapidly deploy… that type of equipment … can be quite a game changer,” he said.

Green said they bought 10 at about about $4000 each, but the cost would come down for larger orders.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Filmmakers across indigenous cultures the world over are gathering in Ōtaki on the Kapiti Coast this week to connect and collaborate at the Māoriland Film Festival.

The film festival, which runs until Saturday, is now in it’s 13th year, having grown from simply a place for indigenous filmmakers to come together to screening more than 100 short and feature films this year.

Isobel and Dakoda are two young indigenous filmmakers from Australia who have been staying at Raukawa marae in Ōtaki as part of a cultural and filmmaking exchange between Victoria and Aotearoa.

“It feels very safe for us and I feel very connected to everyone here. We’ve been sleeping in the same room and we’re mainly outside just playing and that, so it’s good,” said Dakoda a Yorta Yorta, Wemba Wemba, Barapa Barapa and Wiradjuri woman.

Isobel a Djadjawarung woman from Gunditjmara land in Victoria said it’s been inspiring to see how connected Māori are to their culture.

She created a headpiece from emu feathers, echidna quills and kangaroo leather as a gift for former Māoriland festival director Libby Hakaraia who helped make their film a reality.

“So we put it into a headpiece just to show our culture and our connection to land to give to Libby.”

Head of Funding at the New Zealand Film Commission Ainsley Gardiner (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pikiao, Whakatōhea, Te Whānau a Apanui) said it was cool to see the students from Australia bring their films to Aotearoa.

“What’s incredible about that is that rangatahi who have been taught here at Māoriland how to make films have then gone over to Australia to teach other young people about how to make films and they’re also sharing culture. So it’s just this really dual, multifaceted experience for these young people.”

Bringing filmmakers together is one of the most successful things Māoriland does, she said.

“They bring together emerging filmmakers from around the world and they’re doing at a really grassroots level what we as a funding agency are trying to do at a really top level which is bring together filmmakers from around the world to make films together, to find ways to make co-productions.

“So there’s just a really kind of essential foundational thing that happens here which is about building those relationships which actually go on to make a real difference in our industry and in the industries around the world.”

Gardiner said despite the fact it was a really tough time for filmmakers at the moment she was never surprised by how good indigenous filmmakers are.

“It’s always quite tough to be a filmmaker. I think when I was starting out and when young people are starting out, the thing to remember is that filmmaking is not a career pathway. It’s an art form and actually finding your people and finding your tribe and actually making your stories and telling your stories with the people who understand them, for people who long to hear them, is the most important part of the process.

“So while the industry itself really struggles, I don’t think filmmaking as a kind of storytelling art is ever at risk of going away.”

It’s filmmaker Taniora Ormsby’s second year at the festival but first time with a film as part of the programme. He said one of his favourite things about Māoriland is how it brings so many different indigenous people together.

“Last year I was lucky enough to speak with people all the way from the other side of the planet, which I’ve never been able to do anywhere else except for here. To me, that’s part of the appeal, part of the reason why I came back, and to have my film shown amongst all these other amazing filmmakers, it’s a privilege.”

Ormsby’s horror short film Devil in the Gat is playing at Māoriland, exploring the ambitions of a young Māori musician, how far he’s willing to go to achieve his dreams and “how bloody they can be.”

“For Devil in the Gat, that’s where I started. I feel like the story of a young artist trying to break out into an industry is such a universal idea that when you naturally add the te ao Māori elements into it, it feels strangely like a good fit,” he said.

Ormsby said Māori were natural-born storytellers, so recontextualising the stories they had been telling for years would allow filmmakers to break out into different genres, like horror.

“A big kaupapa of mine is seeing Māori in genre spaces. I feel like we can tend to tell the same sort of colonial stories when it comes to movies, short films and TV. So I’m always excited to seeing us in different spaces like Māori horror, for instance. But who’s to say that we can’t be in a sci-fi or a comedy or all the other genres out there.”

“Māori horror” had recently drawn attention with the release of Mārama, which was directed by Māoriland alumni Taratoa Stappard.

Māoriland director Tainui Stephens (Te Rarawa) said it’s hard to believe how far the festival had come in 13 years, it started out simply as place for filmmakers to meet and get together.

“It’s an extravagant mix of cultures and beliefs. But everyone’s united with one aim, and that’s an indigenous heart. To do things for our young people, to tell stories that bring light and entertainment and meaning to our world.”

Stephens said more and more collaborations between indigenous peoples are happening in film and TV, pointing to the series Chief of War as one example. https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/screens/tv/a-hawaiian-epic-made-in-nz-why-jason-momoa-s-chief-of-war-wasn-t-filmed-in-its-star-s-homeland

“This is a chance for people to meet, swap ideas, to dream of collaboration. They leave here and many of them do it. It’s a beautiful thing to see,” he said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The local government minister has called Wellington’s mayor for an explanation of the huge water bills that residents are facing – and are forecast to hit almost $7000 a year by the end of the decade.

Wellington’s new water entity Tiaki Wai is a council-controlled organisation taking over Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua City Councils water assets from July.

It announced this morning that residents will face an average nearly 15 percent hike in water charges this coming financial year – from $2100 to $2400.

Those bills may rise by nearly a quarter the following year – and keep increasing – to reach an estimated $6800 per year for water services by 2036 as the water entity tries to fix old, failing infrastructure.

Local government minister Simon Watts said those costs were higher than he was expecting.

“I’m concerned for Wellington ratepayers again, you know we’ve got a long string of issues in this area.”

Watts said the plan that Tiaki Wai presented to the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and the water regulator last year did not forecast such high costs.

He said he phoned Wellington’s Mayor Andrew Little about this today.

“I outlined to him that we received a plan from you which outlined a profile of cost increases, and as a result the entity has now published a price which is not in the plan, which is much higher, I need to understand, and have an explanation around that.”

A Tiaki Wai spokesperson said the Water Services Delivery plan it presented in August last year was based on the best available information at the time, and the organisation will continue to review its costs as investment plans develop.

Little said Tiaki Wai was responsible for what it sent to DIA last year, and he did not control or veto the organisation’s decisions under the new system.

He said he shared the minister’s concerns about bills, but the government campaigned on this model under its Local Water Done Well policy.

He said he will be scrutinising Tiaki Wai’s performance and pricing closely.

“If the increases follow the path that Tiaki Wai are saying, then people are going to expect high quality, that leaks are repaired quickly, also that they can contact their water company, at any time of the day.”

He wanted the Commerce Commission to be granted the power to intervene if water entity’s bills became unreasonable.

Watts did not confirm if the Commerce Commission would have the power to step in over sky-rocketing bills, but said he had called in the commission in this instance to work with Tiaki Wai and the councils over the projected prices.

Porirua Mayor Anita Baker said bills reaching nearly $7000 a year in a decade were horrendous, and could drive people away from the region.

“At those sort of prices, who’s going to be living here? I can’t pay $6000 in water, and $6000 in rates… we have to do something.”

She said while she supported the establishment of the water entity, and understood the scale of the work at hand, water charges still needed to be affordable.

Wellingtonians divided over jump in bills

Some Wellingtonians RNZ spoke to were worried about the charges due to cost of living pressures, while others said the region’s assets had to be fixed.

Dale said she did not look forward to the future knowing those charges lay ahead.

“That sounds pretty crap. I’m 28, so the way it will be, by the time I am 38, that doesn’t sound like I’ll be living a great life.”

But another resident Daniel Freese said the city had ignored failing assets for too long.

“I think it has to happen, I think we’re paying for under-investment over many years, and although it’s not good news, we just need to suck it up and pay for it.

“If we don’t pay now, we’re going have to pay later, and it’s going to be more.”

Resident Tom Arkell said he was keen to see water meters brought in for the city.

“I’d like to think we could bring in some pay-per-use water monitors, that we can actually incentivise people to use less water, and to track, and therefore they could pay within what they’re comfortable, rather than getting a fixed bill no matter how much water you use.”

Tiaki Wai is considering water meters, and the organisation expects they will take up to seven years to roll out across Wellington, and cost $590 million in total.

Peet yesterday told reporters the dire state of the region’s infrastructure could no longer be ignored after decades of under-investment.

“We know we’ve got a lot of leaks, we know we’ve got compliance issues with wastewater, and we all know that stormwater continues to be a significant challenge for many cities – but Wellington in particular.”

Peet said fixing the failed Moa Point plant – which has been spewing raw sewage into the sea for nearly six weeks – will be a top priority.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than four million New Zealanders are missing out on modern medicines languishing on Pharmac’s drug wish list.

A new report commissioned by Medicines New Zealand – a group representing the pharmaceutical industry – has shown hefty delays in funding medicines.

It found that 137 modern medicines have spent an average of six and half years on Pharmac’s ‘Options for Investment’ list – the drug buying agency’s top priority medicines list.

The report said 83 percent of those medicines are standard-of-care drugs in other countries, meaning they are the go-to treatments.

Medicines New Zealand is calling for ongoing material increases to the drug budget, so Aotearoa can catch up.

Chief executive Graeme Jarvis told Checkpoint it was the result of 30 years of under-investment in the medicines budget.

“We invest about a third of what the rest of the OECD does in their medicines budgets in terms of the publicly funded medicines budgets. So we’ve really got to look at a long-term corrective action that needs to be taken to try and get us towards that OECD average.”

From gathering publicly available information, including information from Pharmac, Jarvis said it will cost about $328 million to clear the priority medicines list.

“We think a step change approach should be looked at, and it’s really the year-on-year increases that we’re going to need to do.”

Jarvis said it would only take about one percent of Vote Health – the primary funding mechanism for the country’s public health system – to clear the list.

“At the moment, Pharmac’s getting about 4.9 percent of the vote health. So moving it to 6 percent of vote health, would actually see you in one year clearing that OFI list.

“Then you can start dealing with some of the other newer medicines that are coming through that have yet to be ranked as well.”

That would mean around an increase of $50-$100 million year-on-year to start moving towards the OECD average.

Jarvis said funding would potentially have to be reshuffled from other areas to cover the cost.

“Governments do this all the time and they move money around and, you know, internally within budgets or vote health would be in this case.

“The other option is that they have got operational allowance still available, despite what’s going on with the recent announcement around the potential relief. So there might be the potential to put $50 million in this year and then look at doing something next year as well – there is existing funding that is available for that.”

The drugs on the list covered a wide range of different conditions.

“Cancer drugs, there are rare disorder drugs, there are neurology drugs for mental health, epilepsy, chronic diseases like diabetes as well, heart failure drugs.”

Jarvis said that without the medicines, these diseases were having a massive material impact on the rest of the health system.

“So we’re ending up with essentially, unfortunately, our hospitals being literally the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

“It is well established that medicines can actually keep people in a primary health setting through GPs and community and away from what is the expensive end of town, which is really into the into the hospitals.”

While the cost to fund all the medicines may sound high, Jarvis said any medicine that had made the list was on there for a reasonable price.

“The medicines that are on these priority lists, there has been health technology assessment done. They’ve been found to be very cost effective and therefore they are value for money.”

Many of the drugs on the list were up to 15 years old.

“We’re talking often about products that are generics, you know all genericized, so they’re quite old, they’re not what we would call new medicines.

“Other countries that are poorer than us are very happy to fund these medicines because they see they are valued for money.”

Health Minister Simeon Brown’s office said he was not in a position to comment on funding as discussions were sensitive ahead of Budget Day.

He pointed to a record $604 million investment in Pharmac in 2024.

The minister said that money covered 33 new cancer medicines and 33 treatments for other conditions. But he said there was more to do to expand access to life saving and life extending medicines.

The Minister responsible for Pharmac David Seymour acknowledged that funding of medicines still took too long.

While Pharmac was achieving better outcomes for patients and increasing access, he said there was room for improvement.

He said when Pharmac was given the money it needed, it acted quickly.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand