Hello There
We set this site up when we rode on a tandem towing a coffin to Wellington to raise awareness for the campaign to double pharmac’s budget. Most of the site relates to that ride.
You’re probably here because you’ve seen something related to that or my sweatember campaign - riding 30 Km high to raise money for Kiwis with cystic fibrosis. Welcome – it’s great to have you here.
Pardon the interruption but before you look around there is three things I’d really, really, really love you to do while you are here (these are buttons you can click)…
And, if you can afford to
(the campaign page which tells you all about it is well worth a look)
Thanks, now carry on to learn more about why we need funding reform for Pharmac and please checkout the updates page to see my progress riding the equivalent of more than three Mt. Everests.
Vulnerable Kiwis are dying because they can’t access life-saving medications.
Will you help save them?
Please join the ...* people who have signed so far.
... more signatures are needed to reach our goal of 100,000 by October 16
That's ... needed today (... so far)
And ... needed this week (... so far)
* doesn't include paper signatures, updates every 10 minutes.
Why you should…
NZ has worst access to medicines in the OECD.
Over 100 medicines are on the waiting list.
One third of these medicines are needed by over 250,000 Kiwis.
Every $1 spent on modern medicines saves the health system between $3 - $10 in hospitalisations depending on the condition.
Some high priority medicines have been waiting for almost 6 years to be funded, and others not deemed high priority have been waiting for almost 14 years.
New Zealanders are not receiving modern medicine.
“You’re not going to get sick and need medication, are you? That’s good, because in New Zealand if you do, you may need to be patient, lucky, rich, or at least resourceful”
We rode to Wellington on a tandem towing a coffin to collect signatures to present to parliament
Many New Zealander’s who have never needed unfunded medicines don’t know how dire the state of funding in New Zealand is. We think it’s so important that the petition to double Pharmac’s budget is successful, we decided to ride a tandem to Wellington to generate publicity, raise awareness and collect more signatures. You can find out more or read about our trip.
During and just after our ride Pharmac announced funding for two new medicines.
One of them was Kalydeco which Otis in the video below needs and the Kalydeco for Kiwis campaign has been petitioning for for some time.
But there are still something like 98 medicines on Pharmac’s wait-list that are not yet funded and New Zealanders either have to, go without, pay for the medicines themselves for move overseas where the drugs are funded (if they can).
The petition doesn’t close until March 26th so you still have time to make New Zealand a fairer and safer place for all. We’ve met people on the trip literally being bankrupted while they pay often $10,000 per month for medicine to keep Fathers and Mothers and Children alive. Please…
One day it might be you or someone you love.
Latest updates
Now that you’ve signed…
Can we ask you to do one more thing? Please double your impact by getting two other people to sign as well. If they each get two people to sign as well, and so on, we’ll have all the signatures we need in no time.
Thank you
We really appreciate you showing your support through signing the petition. If you’d like to help in other ways we’ve got some great suggestions on how to get involved. Many of them will only take a few minutes and can make a huge difference.