NZ MAORI Council Demands Prime Minster step into Cancer death debate PHARMAC

“No Government Agency should be a law unto itself and it is time for an accounting of PHARMAC – it is time that this recalcitrant Government body, funded by the taxpayer, and meant to have the best interests of all New Zealanders at heart to be bought into line.”

These are the words of the New Zealand Maori Council Executive Director, Matthew Tukaki, after he sent a second letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Health and Members of Parliament calling again for an Inquiry into the scheduling and assessment of life saving and life extending medications by PHARMAC:

“Council first called on the Parliament to launch an Inquiry in September of last year. We are now five months down the track, a petition that was handed over to MP’s on the steps of Parliament and where more New Zealanders are coming forward telling their stories. To date the Parliament has not acted, the Minister is missing in action and now two Select Committees are floundering around like a pack of snapper in the desert.” Tukaki said

“This morning I have written to all those involved and told them the time for action is now. The time to address a fundamental series of flaws in the way PHARMAC operates must be addressed and these medications must be scheduled without delay. No family should have to have conversations about where to find the money from in order to live…certainly not in todays New Zealand, a first world country.” Tukaki said

“More importantly Maori women and whanau are more likely to be impacted – we can neither afford the drugs, we are more likely to die and we are more likely to get cancer in the first place. And yet; no one in any of these Agencies gives a rats ass.” Tukaki said

Tukaki has called time on the nonsense, the mucking around and the stupidity that seems to show a Parliament not knowing what they are doing:

© Scoop Media