In the emails first revealed by the Herald, staff at Pharmac demeaned Smalley’s following at Today FM, warned that she could get “mega shitty” if refused an interview and accused the broadcaster of “banging on” during her show. One staffer even went as far as writing a disparaging limerick about Smalley.
Of all the things she read, she says there was one four-letter word that stood out above all the others.
“Without question, that four-letter word ‘sigh’ and four dots… That was in the subject line of an email where I had written about some people I had become close to who had cancer… I wrote a piece about how they would be dead if they were relying on the public health system for treatment.
“The [sub-editor] clipped that up and wrote the headline: ‘My friends would be dead if they had to rely on the public health system for their cancer treatment, and they posted that on Twitter [X]. [Pharmac CEO] Sarah Fitt took a screenshot of that Tweet and sent it to her colleagues. It was the flippancy and disdain… that I still feel most upset about.”
The email that left Rachel Smalley shocked. Image / Rachel Smalley
Smalley says that she understands the need for Pharmac to remain at arm’s length and stay objective in its decision-making, but believes there’s room for improvement.
There have since been calls from family members of those suffering from cancer for Pharmac CEO Sarah Fitt to step down. Whether this does eventuate is yet to be seen.
Regardless of whether Fitt does stay in the job or not, Smalley believes Pharmac needs to change.
“You must understand the lived experience of the people whom you are trying to get medicines for,” says Smalley.
“You must be patient-centric. The world has moved on in terms of how corporates engage now. We understand ESG sustainability, we understand the employee journey, and we understand the humanity of what we’re doing in business these days. And yet, Pharmac just feels that there’s this brutal culture – and because they continuously appoint CEOs from within, that culture keeps rising and keeps manifesting. The Privacy Act has revealed that that which we’ve thought to be true is true.”
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page to hear Smalley elaborate further on what needs to improve about Pharmac and whether politicians are taking this issue seriously enough.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.
