Health Minister

As the 2020 general election looms, Pharmacy Today posed the sector’s burning questions to a handful of top contenders vying for your vote 

Ashley “The Eliminator” Bloomfield leapt to newly appointed health minister Chris Hipkins’ defence at a press conference at Auckland City Hospital yesterday when Pharmacy Today reporter Anna Lee pressed him on the $18 million package promised to pharmacy, only to find he knew nothing about it 

Former health minister David Clark is a nice guy – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, writes New Zealand Doctor editor Barbara Fountain

The embattled health minister David Clark has resigned

Unprecedented changes to the way the New Zealand health system is organised are coming and pharmacists need to be involved at the top levels where decisions are made

Fewer DHBs, PHOs no longer compulsory and DHBs managing primary care networks – these are among the recommendations out today in the Simpson report that could now lead to the biggest shake up in the health sector in a generation

In a pre-Budget funding announcement earlier today, the Government announced $3.92 billion in extra funding for DHBs over the next four years, but Pharmaceutical Society president Ian McMichael is “sceptical” the pharmacy sector will benefit from it.  

Opposition health spokesperson Michael Woodhouse claims health minister David Clark has used creative accounting to make old funding seem new, while injecting little into the drug-funding agency’s now billion-dollar annual budget 

Budget 2020 delivers the biggest ever increase in funding for District Health Boards, as well as additional funding to deliver approximately 153,000 more surgeries and procedures, radiology scans and specialist appointments to help clear the COVID-19 backlog

Green Cross Health and the Pharmacy Guild are urging the Govern­ment to waive the $5 dollar prescription copayment fee for vulnerable populations to ensure the delivery of an equitable response during the COVID-19 crisis