Budget 2024 health: No funding for promised cancer drugs disappoints breast cancer patient – extension to screening welcomed [Video]

Gill Ripley is self-funding Keytruda for her breast cancer, not covered by Pharmac.
Budget 2024 extends free breast screening, but lacks funding for 13 new cancer drugs.
Cancer Society calls for urgent reform to improve NZ’s low OECD medicine access ranking.

A cancer patient is disappointed with a lack of funding for new medicines in Budget 2024, and expects it will be years until the drug that helped her stay alive is funded by Pharmac.

National campaigned on funding, from this year, 13 cancer treatments available in Australia, but these were not announced as part of Budget 2024.

Gill Ripley is paying for the immunotherapy drug Keytruda to treat her breast cancer.

The drug is not one of the 13 cancer medicines identified by National, but the fact that even those have not been funded makes Ripley believe there’s little hope access to Keytruda or other vital drugs will be funded any time …

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