Last week our two co-founders Sarah and Fiona attended the second Valuing Life Summit, representing our migraine community at the 2-day event held at Parliament.
This invite-only summit was organised by Patient Voice Aotearoa and Medicines New Zealand, and brought together patient advocacy groups, MPs, government decision-makers, industry and others to discuss and challenge medicine access in New Zealand.
The summit was opened by Hon David Seymour, Deputy Prime Minister and Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac) and MC’ed by Rachel Smalley. Also in attendance was Paula Bennett, Pharmac Chair and Natalie McMurtry, the new chief executive of Pharmac.
Panel sessions and workshops over the 2 days focused on medication funding, the broader healthcare system, the role of AI, Trump tariffs and the implications for New Zealand, health technology assessment, healthcare funding models and so much more.
Some key facts we learnt regarding medication funding:
- We spend only 5% of the health budget on medicines (compared to 12% in the UK; 15% in Australia). NZ can afford to spend more on medicines but the Government chooses not to.
- NZ spends around a third of what other OECD countries spend on community medicines.
- If we funded everything on Pharmac’s Options for Investment list, we’d still be below the average OECD spend on medicines.
- Australian speakers told us not to look to them as an exemplar but it’s still true that Australia funds more than twice as many modern medicines as NZ and twice as fast; and of the medicines funded in Australia but not in NZ, most (81%) are considered to be standard of care (that includes the new anti-CGRP migraine medications).
Migraine Foundation was invited to be a guest speaker on a panel session about the patient advocates perspective of funded medication access. Fiona represented our migraine community eloquently when she joined Dr Malcolm Mulholland (Patient Voice Aotearoa), Tim Edmonds (Leukemia and Blood Cancer) and Chris Higgins (Rare Disorders NZ) on the panel. Fiona was able to discuss migraine medication challenges related to the anti-CGRP medications and triptans.
This wasn’t the only time migraine disease was part of the conversation. Migraine was subsequently brought up by other speakers as a chronic illness that has a huge economic and social burden, and an Australian guest speaker noted how horrified he was about NZ’s limited access to migraine medications.
Leading into an election next year, it was important to have other MPs in the room who, we hope, were listening to the patient voice. The cross party approach panel saw panellist Sam Uffindell (National), Dr Ayesha Verrall (Labour), Todd Stephenson (ACT), Jenny Marcroft (NZ First) and Hūhana Lyndon (Green Party) discuss and debate medication access in NZ, including challenges and their parties views on how to progress the issue. Current Minister of Health Hon Simeon Brown was in attendance briefly at the end of day 1.
A strong message from the Summit was that medicines are an investment in health and not a cost burden, and an investment that reaps great reward for treating diseases like migraine, when effective treatment means people can get their lives back and get back to work.
As always, events like these also provide an opportunity to connect with and discuss issues with other charities. It’s so important our migraine voice is at the table and is part of the conversation. Our ongoing thanks to our migraine community for supporting us to do this work. All of us deserve to live a life with no more days lost to migraine; we deserve access to effective treatments and care; we deserve a life not defined by our disease.
