The parents of a teenager who died suddenly from meningitis have delivered a petition to MPs pleading for the government to fund vaccines against the disease.
Gerard and Claire Rushton at Parliament to present an NZ Meningitis Foundation petition urging free vaccines to MPs. Photo: Mike Clare / clickmedia.nz / supplied
Gerard and Claire Rushton, whose 16-year-old daughter Courtenay Rushton died suddenly from meningitis in 2014, said they would not rest until all children had free access to it.
"Ten to 20 percent of people who contract this disease will pass away and another 20 percent will have lifelong disabilities. So realistically on a bad day if you contract it, you've got a 40 percent chance of passing away or being severely disfigured," Gerard Rushton said.
Pharmac funds a meningococcal ACWY-strains vaccine, a meningococcal B vaccine and a meningococcal C vaccine for close contacts of other meningitis cases or people who are immunocompromised.
The ACWY vaccine is also available for people 13 to 25 years old in close living situations such as boarding school hostels, tertiary education halls of residence, prisons or military barracks.
Each vaccine costs about $150.
The petition wants all children to have free access to both vaccines by age 16.
Claire Rushton said they were unaware of the risk before Courtenay's death.
"We thought our daughter received all the vaccines she needed... we thought she was protected but that isn't the case and many parents we speak to think the same as what we did."
"New Zealand is behind. Australia do it, the UK do it, we have to start to look after our young people."
She said today's Covid climate put young people especially further at risk because they would be required to isolate - not go to the hospital - if they started to develop flu symptoms.
Today their 6357-signature petition on behalf of the Meningitis Foundation was delivered to National health spokesperson Shane Reti.
"This is well received by the community. It's an important piece of work that's been on the agenda for a long period of time. It needs to move off the whiteboard, into people's arms, that's what we're looking to do."
"I sense a will across the House to progress this, but it will need to go through due process," he said.
Up to 200 New Zealanders a year will contract meningococcal disease. Gerard Rushton said the ongoing costs to the health system were far more than the cost of prevention.
"A recent person that contracted the disease and recently passed away had nine days hospitalisation and that cost over $1 million.
"A conservative estimate at this stage for someone that has limbs removed, their lifetime care is somewhere north of $10 million, so the figures do add up."
Health Minister Andrew Little acknowledged more could be done.
"This is a disease that we do need to keep people, especially young people, safe from. I'm sure there's more that can be done and in the end Pharmac has to make its decisions and it is ongoing work in terms of providing them support."
Pharmac director of operations Lisa Williams thanked the Rushtons for sharing their story.
She said widening access to the vaccines was something Pharmac had reviewed in the past and wanted to do, but did not currently have the funding for.
"We operate within a fixed budget set by the government. There will always be more medicines we want to fund than we can afford. This means we have to make difficult choices about what medicines are funded."
She said more vaccines had been made available for free over the past five years, "from protecting young children against chickenpox and older people from shingles to protecting young adults in close living situations from meningococcal ACWY and males from human papillomavirus (HPV)."
"Hearing how medicines impact the lives of New Zealanders is really important in helping us understand what medicines Kiwis think we should be funding. We acknowledge those presenting their petition and thank them for sharing their stories."
The Meningitis Foundation wants the vaccines fully rolled out by 2025.