Photo: COLLANGES / BSIP via AFP
From today, Pharmac is to fund a new form of hormone replacement therapy, after years of campaigning by doctors and patients.
Hormone therapy patches, which are used to mitigate the symptoms of estrogen deficiency, have been hard to access for over two years due to a global shortage and an increase in prescriptions.
Women here have had to shop around multiple pharmacies and pay for extra lower dose patches to make up their prescribed dosages.
A transdermal gel - Estrogel - will be funded from today - available by prescription.
Unfunded, it can cost up to $70 per month.
Doctors have long criticised Pharmac for being too slow to intervene in funding new treatments, as women struggled with the shortage.
Megan Ogilvie is an endocrinologist with ERH in Auckland.
