Charity coalition and agency partners’ forbidden pharmacy spotlights NZ medicine inequality

A coalition of 17 patient charities has partnered with dotdotdash NZ, McCann NZ and FleishmanHillard NZ to launch ‘The forbidden pharmacy’.

It’s a public awareness campaign that focuses on the long wait times and the costs patients face trying to access the medicines they need here in Aotearoa.

According to the campaign, Aotearoa continues to have one of the lowest levels of publicly funded access to modern medicines among comparable OECD countries. Over the past decade, 477 modern medicines have been launched globally, with just 24 funded in New Zealand. The campaign says this means around 95% of modern medicines introduced during that period are not publicly funded locally.

The charity coalition also points to differences in medicines investment, stating that New Zealand invests around 0.4% of its GDP per capita on publicly funded medicines, compared with an OECD average of 1.4%.

Real illnesses and real stories

Held at Auckland’s Shed 10, ‘The forbidden pharmacy’ installation brought those statistics to life. It featured hundreds of medicines behind locked doors, representing treatments that are available internationally but aren’t in New Zealand.

Each medicine represented a real illness and a real story about people living with the financial, emotional and physical cost of delayed or denied treatment.

More than 1500 people attended the installation, including members of patient communities, healthcare professionals and political representatives from government parties including ACT, Labour, NZ First, National and the Minister of Health.

First-hand accounts

Throughout the exhibition, visitors heard first-hand accounts from patients and explored the medicines displayed behind locked doors.

The campaign will continue beyond the installation with a social content series and website encouraging New Zealanders to sign an open letter to political parties leaders in the lead up to the national election. 

Campaign spokesperson Tim Edmonds says the installation has brought New Zealand’s medicines access crisis to life, shifting it from an issue of statistics to one that people can see, feel and connect with.

“By uniting New Zealand’s patient communities and partnering with some of the country’s top creative talent, we’ve revealed the reality faced by thousands of New Zealanders in a way that the public and politicians can genuinely connect with.

“The Forbidden Pharmacy has elevated an important national conversation about the medicines that remain locked away from New Zealanders, despite their ability to improve, extend and save lives,” he said.

Human impact

Among those who shared their story as part of the campaign was Judith Ansell, who is living with metastatic HER2-low breast cancer. Although treatment options are available overseas, they are not publicly funded in New Zealand.

Ansell has spent more than $90,000 on private treatment after choosing to move in with her daughter instead of buying another home so she could put that money towards treatment. She now faces an estimated $64,000 bill for six months of medicine that is available in Australia, South Africa, Scotland and Lithuania, but not here.

dotdotdash executive creative director Haydn Kerr says meeting patients throughout the campaign reinforced the human impact behind the statistics.

“It’s been confronting to meet people who cannot get the medicine they need. We are in awe of their strength and heartbroken by the brutal, cruel impossibility they face. It’s unbelievable to me that there are 600,000 New Zealanders in the same position. This must not be ignored.”

Kerr said the campaign represented an unprecedented collaboration between patient groups, agencies and partners.

“At one point 40 people from the 17 charities, plus representatives from five agencies, were on a single video call trying to build a pharmacy that isn’t even real. But that’s what it takes to get this issue onto the political agenda. Because this mountain hasn’t moved in decades.”

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