Opinion: Cancer Treatments Improved Under National

More Southlanders will receive essential cancer treatments if National becomes Government.

Cancer touches almost every family in New Zealand.

It is something that is also close to my heart, having lost both of my parents to cancer.

Each year, more than 25,000 Kiwis are diagnosed with cancer and more than 10,000 tragically lose their lives.

These figures are astonishing and National wants to do something to make a change.

Thirteen cancer treatments have been identified by the National Cancer Control Agency, as lifesaving or life prolonging.

These treatments are for lung, bowel, kidney, melanoma, and head and neck cancers and provide significant clinical benefits. They are currently funded in Australia, but not in New Zealand.

Kiwis have a 15 percent greater mortality from cancer than Australians.

If these treatments were funded, people would not have to leave the country, mortgage their homes, or start a funding page to afford them.

National will pay for these cancer treatments by ringfencing $280 million in funding to PHARMAC, over four years, and will do this by targeting the free prescription policy Labour recklessly gave all New Zealanders.

National believes some people can afford to pay a $5 prescription charge and would be happy to do so if that funding went into cancer therapies instead.

Under National, superannuitants and those on low incomes will still receive free prescriptions. For everyone else, the total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100.

Improving New Zealand’s performance on cancer treatments will be a priority for the next National Government.