oops I meant Mervin..my fave Human Rights Officer... :)

I received a letter today and he still maintains that people are not inconvenienced enough where having to get their Doctor sign the script certified exempt every three monthly is concerned here in NZ.  (This bearing in mind my exeprience last week where I asked the Doctor and she didn’t bother to).

I emailed him back:

Sir,

We have a misunderstanding where my emails to you have been concerned.  I meant to point out to you that anyone who has a disability similar to my son in this country is being discriminated against by PHARMAC.  Simply put, they are segregating the two different  types of disability and labeling each one differently here in their schedule.   What I mean to say is, that this is like treating two people with equally challenging disabilities differently where it comes to having time off for
sickness or some other similar scenario or other such discrimination.  That although they have the clause FOR people with physiological disabilities to aqcuire their med’s up front in a three monthly lot, it actually means they have to ASK and cannot be afforded the same dignity of simply self exempting at the pharmacy as other disabled people do. 

Also simply put, they are being treated just the same as the average "healthy" New Zealand citizen is and being lumped in with all of those people that only have to ask their Doctor to sign the script certified exempt perhas once in their lifetime if they are unlucky enough to be ILL for longer than a three month period.    The point I am trying to make is---what your essentially saying in your last correspondance is that my son and people like him do not deserve to have the dignity of self exempting from what is effectively a system purely designed for people who will not need to use the pharmacy or the Doctor as frequnetly as he will or I do as his Mother.  That’s because they probably don’t need to get scripts from one year to the next being healthy!  Some disabled people are being treated differently because Pharmac have not took the time to acknowledge that ALL people with a disability have an inconvenience and FAR more of an inconvenience than the
average healthy New Zealander.

My son is classed as having a disability.  I can get you a letter from his Endocrinologist stating this if you like.  This makes him MORE inconvenienced than the average healthy New Zealander that only has to perhaps self exempt once in a life time.  Although he may not be quite that disabled he cannot get to the pharmacy---he isn’t exactly NOT disabled that it is not an inconvenience either when compring him to the average healthy person is he?  Why therefore should he be lumped with other’s who do not have to use the pharmacy that much?  I beg to differ on the matter and the top and bottom of the matter is, Pharmac have made absolutely NO allowances for HIM in their schedule--well not anymore than your average healthy New Zealander anyway have they? 

Is that equality or levelling the playing field for him?  Is it right that they don’t see him as a disabled person whom has a right to self exempt and have them recognize that disability as worthy
enough to be treated equal to other disabled people in this country?

Is it right that he should be lumped with the other people that rarely use the system as much as he does?  Where is the fairness in that?  You may think it is no hassle asking Doctor every three months for a script to be signed "certified exempt"---but if it is no big hassle Mervin---then tell me
here...is a person in a wheel chair any less able to "ask" their Doctor to write certified exempt in their script?   Fact is they have mouths like I said--but they are afforded
different "preferential" treatment when it is compared along side other disabled people within NZ, and this is so that they are not inconvenienced. Pharmac thought, "Oh  we can’t expect these people to ask their Doctor’s this stuff all the time.  People who are healthy can because they don’t have to use the Doctor’s or the pharmacy that much, but these guy’s in the wheel chairs should not have to verbally ask!"  Now with this line of thinking it smack to me that obviously it is unfair to put THEM in the position of asking a simple question of their Doctor, but other people with "disabilities" MUST do this---and it won’t be any inconvenience?   No frustration at being treated differently do you think?  No frustration that you are different than other healthy New Zealander’s and yet not "quite" disabled enough where they are concerned to have it recognized that,
"Hey, here is a group that have to ask this question every three months--not
just once in a blue moon if they are unlucky like the healthy people out there." :)

You never even mentioned about what other countries do with this regard and how they deal where treating ALL people with disabilities and their med’s are concerned did you?  I guess New Zealand folks have different ideas about different things but I can tell you one thing...they will never in my opinion be treating the likes of my son fairly as long as that schedule is left the way it is.

They are SO desperate to save money from the average New Zealander not completing their three month once in a blue moon script, they forgot all about the ones here that cannot forget about their three monthly scripts without ending up six foot under as a result.  I guess we are condemned to pestering our Doctor forever more about signing it certified exempt when it
would have been a lot simpler for these idiots to put ONE sentence in their schedule that RECOGNIZES ALL disabilities as EQUAL and exempts certainled disabled people from the other stuff and enables them to collect their scripts with the DIGNITY they deserve!

THAT is discrimination.  That they are doing this to people since 1996 (not just myself and my son) is actually much much worse.  I am saddened that you feel it is ok and that it is not a
psychological inconvenience as well as a physical inconvenience here.
Whatever Human Rights Commission job’s entail, you from my perspective have not really seen all that.  I said to you specifically that ALL people with disabilities are EQUAL to one another and should be TREATED equally by this company (PHARMA) and any other that supplies goods and services TO disabled people in this country.  They don’t and haven’t since 1996 for that
matter.  That means thousands of people here who feel discounted where it comes to their disability being accounted for as IMPORTANT enough to be treated like anyone else whom has a disability in this country. It’s almost like they aren’t QUITE disabled enough to make the grade--and have been SLAPPED into the category of being well enough along with the average Joe Bloggs that is healthy and never inconvenienced a fraction as much.  THAY can collect their scripts monthly if their Doctor is too uneducated to sign certified exempt on their script.  Yes it is a Doctor education problem and it has been around for long enough don’t you think?  THEY aren’t going to complain about it because they don’t really know how it feels to be treated like this.  People whom are sick every once in a blue moon aren’t going to be that bothered, because THEY don’t realize they are lucky enough not to have to even bother their Doctor about getting their script marled certified exempt.  They may get a script and not mind collecting once a month since they don’t have to do it every month of their lives for ever and a day!

You have totally evaded the issue here.  That this company have treated people with disabilities like they don’t have disabilities important enough to control how they get their ongoing life long drugs for the past 8 or so years!  Yet they have afforded other’s that privilege even thought that particular group of people are as able to open their mouths as anyone else with a disability where it comes to asking such a simple question.  Well you DO feel it is a simple question don’t you---not much inconvience to anyone hey?  I mean I thought that you of all  people would have understood what they have done here with their schedule.  Yes this did allow for "some" people with disabilities such as Ashley’s by advising  you must get your script certified exempt by a Doctor to get things three monthly BUT they STILL are treated differently.  The "differently" so happens to be more inconvenient too!

Regards,

A Jefferies

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I give up with these people...it seems like one is banging one’s head against a brick wall repeatedly and getting nowhere...I am furious that this guy does not see this as discrimination.  I can appeal but he says if Pharmac win, they can flick their costs onto me.  Lovely...that is really encouraging people to fight for the right to equal opportunity isn’t it?