Tauranga woman Sue Wall-Cade, 65, has terminal breast cancer and believes comments made by Pharmac's chief executive were "sickening". Photo / Alex Cairns
Tauranga woman Sue Wall-Cade, 65, has terminal breast cancer and believes comments made by Pharmac's chief executive were "sickening". Photo / Alex Cairns
Terminal breast cancer sufferer Sue-Wall Cade is calling for the removal of Pharmac’s chief executive and board after comments she describes as “sickening” and “derogatory” were revealed by journalist Rachel Smalley.
It comes after other cancer patients and families called in an open letter for chief executive SarahFitt to resign, and the Patient Voice Aotearoa group also said Fitt should be sacked.
Wall-Cade, a fierce advocate for funding life-prolonging cancer medication, is living with stage-four metastatic breast cancer in Tauranga. She calls herself a “metavivor” - a portmanteau of her terminal diagnosis and the word survivor.
In 2018, the 65-year-old started a petition, supported by other metavivors, calling for better access to the life-prolonging drug Kadcyla. In 2019, Parliament confirmed the drug would be funded.
Last month, Wall-Cade told the Bay of Plenty Times she was on her last funded treatment and may “wipe out” her KiwiSaver account to pay for an unfunded option to prolong her life costing about $23,000 every three weeks.
She called for the Government to double funding for Pharmac, the agency that decides which medicines are funded in New Zealand.
Journalist Rachel Smalley. Photo / Greg Bowker
In an opinion piece published in the Herald on October 6, Smalley revealed internal emails sent by Pharmac staff following a Privacy Act request.
This included an email sent by Fitt in July last year, with “Sigh….” in the subject line. The email included a Twitter link to an editorial Smalley wrote about a group of cancer patients who were self-funding immunotherapy drugs.
In another email, from August 2022, Fitt suggested going to Auckland to meet Smalley: “Anything is possible, although not wild on a 6am studio appearance. Was thinking of a separate meeting off-air with her. Just an idea. If we don’t do her, we could do NZ Herald/Stuff/usual suspects or we could just go up and sit in the Viaduct in the sun [sic].”
Wall-Cade said, in her opinion, Fitt writing “sigh” in an email was “incredibly derogatory”.
Wall-Cade said her advocacy for the past five years was based on her hopes that drugs would be funded “in a fair and just way”.
In her view: “When you read these emails … it made me, and obviously a lot of other cancer patients, realise that there never was going to be a fair hearing … with an attitude like that and a culture — it was never going to be democratic.
“It just sucker-punched me.
“For people like us, hope is a big part of what we have that keeps us going. And this revelation just shattered that hope.”
Wall-Cade said, in her view, the email exchange about meeting the “usual suspects” or, if not, going to the Viaduct to sit in the sun was “sickening”.
She said Kiwis were moving to Australia to get funded drugs they could not access in New Zealand and remortgaging their houses “to try and stay alive”.
“This is the reality for some people in New Zealand, and when you read things like that ... you think, ‘How? What are you doing in that role?’”
Wall-Cade called for Pharmac’s chief executive and board to be “gone”, as she had “no respect” and “no faith” in Pharmac.
Approached for comment, Pharmac referred to a statement made by board chairman Steve Maharey last week.
“The board chair met face-to-face with the senior leadership team on Monday, October 9 and instructed them to identify actions that can be taken to prevent a situation like this from happening again.
“The board chair expects these actions to be presented at the next board meeting, which is scheduled for the end of October.
“The full board will consider if the actions suitably address the matter at the October board meeting.”
Pharmac had no further comment to make.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.
