STATEMENT FROM CHAIR OF PATIENT VOICE AOTEAROA MALCOLM MULHOLLAND
NAN BRUNNING
17 November 2019

Moe mai ra Nan, moe mai ra i roto te ngakau o te kaihanga e kore rawa koe e warewaretia, ka tangi tonu mei mou moe mai ra moe mai ra.

On behalf of Patient Voice Aotearoa, I would like to extend our heartfelt sympathy to the whanau of Nancy ‘Nan’ Brunning. While Nan will be remembered for her outstanding acting career, we also remember her for joining with other patients around New Zealand in supporting our petition to double the Pharmac budget and to have the Government agency reformed. Sadly, Nan was one of the many thousand of New Zealanders who desperately needed life-extending medication and was forced to have to fundraise in order to prolong her life. Nan was passionate about the need to change Pharmac so that others, like herself, would not have the worry of paying for expensive drugs when what time they had was so precious.

Sadly, Nan now rests with cancer advocate Blair Vining and ovarian cancer patient Melanie Schonewille, patients who featured in our petition campaign video that was launched less than three months ago. The drugs that were needed for Nan and Blair are still to be funded, whereas for Melanie the funding of Lynparza came too late. We call upon all New Zealanders to honour the memory of Nan by signing our petition.

Link to the ‘Sensitive to a Smile’ video that features Nan, Blair and Melanie can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJzEjzFXtw

Link to the petition can be found at: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/petitions/document/PET_91080/petition-of-malcolm-mulholland-for-patient-voice-aotearoa

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