Expat Doctors And Researchers Deliver Stark Reality To Prime Minister

• Kiwis with blood cancer have worse survival than elsewhere in the world.

Leading expatriate blood cancer doctors and researchers have delivered a striking Open Letter to the Prime Minister pointing out the stark reality that underfunding Pharmac is leading to worse survival and worse outcomes for Kiwis with blood cancer.

Coordinating Kiwi-Australian, Professor Judith Trotman said, “NZ is not funding drugs, with a cascading effect on patient lives, doctors’ morale and drug development. Patients are being lost to their disease and doctors lost to overseas.”

The letter to the Prime Minister, and Ministers for Health and Pharmac, made comment on the lack of drug access and the impact on the blood cancer community. Key points are:

• There are over 100 different blood cancers: most are rare cancers.
• Blood cancers cannot be prevented with public health measures or surgically removed.
• In the last two decades, there has been a global transformation in effective, well tolerated, targeted therapies for most blood cancers, doubling survival.
• With chronic underfunding of Pharmac the lives of blood cancer patients are disproportionately affected as they cannot access these new lifesaving, life-changing medicines.
• Most New Zealanders with blood cancers are dying unnecessarily. A few are travelling, or staying overseas, to access often self-funded therapy.
• A failure to access even standard of care medicines is prohibiting NZ patients' and haematologists’ access to clinical trials of even more promising novel therapies.
• The moral injury caused to haematology professionals is driving many to careers overseas, to access the essential tools of their trade and effectively treat patients with blood cancers: delivering longer, better lives.

The letter included a series of case studies of the impact of delayed drug access.

The 35 haematology expats proposed immediate action:

• establish a funding trajectory for Pharmac to deliver standard of care blood cancer medicines to levels of comparable OECD nations.
• engage in an urgent roundtable and establish a local Taskforce of government and haematology experts, including consumers, to create a roadmap for an agile, high performing health system to deliver blood cancer care.
• minimal funding support to enable NZ’s participation in the Australasian Leukaemia Lymphoma Group (ALLG) investigator-initiated clinical trial program

Quotes from New Zealand Haematologists for Media:

Professor Rodger Tiedemann

Auckland haematologist, and leading myeloma blood cancer researcher, Prof Rodger Tiedemann (University Auckland, University of Toronto) said “As an ex-expat myself, I was appalled at the lack of modern medicines in New Zealand when I returned home in 2023. Kiwis are missing out on huge advances in blood cancer care. Expert expats are unanimous that New Zealand's government needs to do more to improve blood cancer treatments. That urgent need is obvious to anyone in the know, and indeed to anyone with an internet browser.”

Dr Rory Bennett

Waitemata haematologist, returned from working at a prominent cancer centre in Melbourne, noted that “People with blood cancer in New Zealand deserve to have access to the same live-saving medicines available in other OECD nations. I feel desperately sorry, and helpless, for my patients who would routinely receive transformative treatment if they lived in Australia or further afield. Blood cancers are principally treated with medicines, not surgery or radiation therapy. For New Zealanders with blood cancer to live longer and better lives, the government must increase expenditure on blood cancer therapies.”

Quotes from the Australian & New Zealand professional societies for media:

The Letter to the Prime Minster was endorsed by both the HSANZ and ALLG societies:

Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand (HSANZ)

“HSANZ represents a close trans-Tasman community of doctors, nurses and scientists. We are committed to advocating for our patients and ensuring they benefit from the extraordinary progress being made in blood cancer treatment, helping people live longer and live better. Through this open letter, we join in advocating the steps outlined to ensure all New Zealanders can share in these gains.” said President, Dr Adam Bryant.

HSANZ Immediate Past President 2023-2025, Head of Haematology at Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide and Kiwi-Australian A/Prof Hui-Peng Lee, from Auckland “Kiwi patients with Blood Cancers are waiting years for medicines the rest of the world already considers standard of care. As a NZ Haematologist working in neighbouring Australia, it is deeply confronting to see how wide that gap has become. Where you live should not determine whether you receive modern life saving treatment for Blood Cancer – but for New Zealanders, it increasingly does. Modern targeted treatments have changed outcomes for patients globally, but too many Kiwis are still being treated with older chemotherapy approaches simply because the medicines aren’t funded. When doctors can’t prescribe modern medicines and patients must leave the country to access them, something is fundamentally wrong. What begins as a crack in access can quickly become a chasm in outcomes. We are already seeing this: patients who can afford overseas care are accessing the lifesaving therapies while others who cannot stay back and lag behind in survivorship. For clinicians trained to deliver world-class care, practising so far behind global standards also pushes talented doctors to leave, even the ones with strong NZ roots - like myself.”

Australasian Leukaemia & Lymphoma Group (ALLG)

ALLG is the only not-for-profit clinical trial organisation in Australian and New Zealand that sponsors local investigator-initiated clinical trials. The ALLG membership of clinicians is made up of almost all the haematologists treating leukaemia and lymphoma across Australia and New Zealand. www.allg.org.au

Ms Delaine Smith, ALLG Chief Executive Officer, said, “the delay in availability of evidence-based medicines means that New Zealanders are unable to join many important clinical trials. Clinical trials frequently require the standard treatment to be readily available as the comparator. Unfortunately, many of our cooperative group trials do not become available for NZ patients with blood cancer simply because the standard treatments are not routinely available in the same way they are available elsewhere in the world.”

Background:

Prof Judith Trotman, Sydney Haematologist and expatriate New Zealander, has led 35 world-class expatriate haematologists in an Open Letter to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

This Open Letter was delivered to the Right Honourable Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister on Friday 6 March 2026.

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