Therapeutic Products Bill

Members, we come now to Part 3. This is the debate on clauses 67 to 116, “Dealing with therapeutic products”. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to speak on Supplementary Order Paper 377 that Brooke van Velden has in her name, around clause 67. Now, this is around importing medicines and medical devices for the purpose of supplying it to health practitioners. What we’re just a bit concerned around here is around this clause, especially under clauses 88 and 89 in this, a health practitioner or veterinarian can legally import such unauthorised medicines or medicine devices in accordance with a special-case requirement.

This has happened a lot in the past around, again, cancer treatments that you can’t get here in New Zealand, or other specialist rare diseases that people have, and that the medicines aren’t available. We’re concerned that we just need to make sure that this is made a little bit clearer so that these people, health practitioners and veterinarians, can bring these in, because as we’ve said, this bill doesn’t just cover humans. It also can cover Fluffy, the cat, you know, because sometimes they need cancer treatments as well. So we’ve got to make sure that we are able to make sure that our loved animals can also get the treatment that they need as well as our loved humans.

The thing is, you forget that there is so much medicine out in other parts of the world that have been approved and used around the world, and we may not have them here because Pharmac has not had the time to assess them or make sure that they are here. However, they are used overseas, and we need to still be able to bring these in with the special cases, and especially put it back again on to these health practitioners and veterinarians—again, these people are special cases, and required especially in clause 65.

Anyway, we have got to make sure that we have these medicines here if we can get them easily. So we’re just a bit concerned that, again, some of this is limiting the stream because it goes also to upstream activities in new clause 102A, “Upstream supply of medicine or medical device to health practitioner or veterinarian”. So we’ve just got this major concern and this is why we have brought this, as well as with the advice from our medical professionals that have brought this to our attention. You know, they are still very much concerned about this, and especially around rare disorders and rare cancers that we don’t see a lot of, and people having to being able to get these medicines or devices that are required for the specific cases. We just make it very clear that we need to be able to do this because if we can’t get the medicines here approved ASAP we, again, lose loved ones, be it human or the furry kind, a little bit too soon if people can’t get these special medicines.

I endorse that previous contribution, that it’s important to make sure there are provisions to allow the import of medicines by individuals, and I appreciate the intent of that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), because that is an important part of the environment. In New Zealand, though, of course, the vast majority of medicines are approved and available, but, none the less, individuals need this opportunity.

I do not support the SOP because the bill already provides this through a number of clauses, which I’ll outline here. In particular, clauses 105 and 106 allow individuals to personally import medicines and medical devices, subject to conditions. Clause 115 allows regulations to enable a class of persons to carry on this activity. Clause 151 allows licensing for a person to carry out a controlled activity. And clause 160 allows a person to import or supply a therapeutic product. So that SOP is unnecessary because those opportunities for individuals to import already exist in the bill.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 368 be agreed to.