The controversial 2021 decision by the government drug-buying agency Pharmac to prioritise M\u0101ori and Pacific patients in its funding of two game-changing new diabetes drugs appears to have paid off.<\/p>\n
At the time, Pharmac wanted to restrict funding to those diabetes patients who met certain health criteria. The Diabetes Foundation, however, warned that hundreds of New Zealanders would\u00a0die earlier than they should<\/a>\u00a0without full funding for everyone.<\/p>\n After sustained lobbying, Pharmac decided to prioritise funding for M\u0101ori and Pacific patients without needing to meet additional criteria. It described the decision as an important step forward in improving equity for these groups.<\/p>\n Our recent research, to be published later this year, shows Pharmac has indeed been able to significantly improve access for these communities, which are over-represented in diabetes statistics.<\/p>\n An estimated\u00a011 percent of New Zealand’s annual health budget<\/a>\u00a0goes towards treating diabetes. M\u0101ori are three times more likely to be affected by diabetes than P\u0101keh\u0101, and Pacific people are five times more likely.<\/p>\n Mortality rates for M\u0101ori<\/a>\u00a0with type 2 diabetes are also seven times higher than for non-M\u0101ori. And it is predicted that one in four Pacific people will have the disease within 20 years.<\/p>\n Traditional approaches to managing diabetes in New Zealand include medications such as\u00a0metformin<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0insulin<\/a>. These are both relatively cheap and fully funded.<\/p>\n However, despite the fact they are both affordable and accessible, they’re not always sufficient to maintain optimal long-term blood sugar levels. This puts patients at a much higher risk of diabetes-related complications, including cardiovascular disease and hospitalisation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The controversial 2021 decision by the government drug-buying agency Pharmac to prioritise M\u0101ori and Pacific patients in its funding of two game-changing new diabetes drugs appears to have paid off. At the time, Pharmac wanted to restrict funding to those diabetes patients who met certain health criteria. The Diabetes Foundation, however, warned that hundreds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3766,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions\/3766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Health costs of old medicines<\/h3>\n