{"id":19739,"date":"2023-10-07T20:50:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T07:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=19739"},"modified":"2023-10-07T20:50:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T07:50:24","slug":"blood-cancer-group-call-for-pharmac-boss-to-resign-over-disgraceful-and-deeply-offensive-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=19739","title":{"rendered":"BLOOD CANCER GROUP CALL FOR PHARMAC BOSS TO RESIGN OVER \u2018DISGRACEFUL\u2019 AND \u2018DEEPLY OFFENSIVE\u2019 STATEMENTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n

BLOOD CANCER GROUP CALL FOR PHARMAC BOSS TO RESIGN OVER \u2018DISGRACEFUL\u2019 AND \u2018DEEPLY OFFENSIVE\u2019 STATEMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Ruth Spearing, haematologist and Trustee of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Advocates NZ, today called for the resignation of Pharmac CEO Sarah Fitt over revelations in internal emails released under the Official Information Act. The emails concerned journalist and outspoken critic of Pharmac, Rachel Smalley.<\/p>\n

Dr Spearing said the emails revealed a sick, sneering culture inside Pharmac and a disgraceful attitude towards a person who has had the courage to speak out on behalf of patients who have been waiting years for Pharmac decisions on medicines.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah Fitt\u2019s comments are not just unprofessional, they are deeply offensive, and demonstrate that she is entirely unfit to manage an organisation that has control over the lives and wellbeing of thousands of New Zealanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that Ms Fitt has created a crude, jokey clique among senior Pharmac staff, swapping childish, insulting remarks about Ms Smalley, even to the extent of composing a limerick about her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on Health Minister Ayesha Verrall, State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes and Pharmac Chair Steve Maharey to show that this behaviour by the leader of a government agency cannot be tolerated, and to demand her immediate resignation,\u201d said Dr Spearing.<\/p>\n

Rachel Smalley: Inside the minds of Pharmac\u2019s leadership team – NZ Herald<\/a><\/p>\n

For further information contact:<\/p>\n

Dr Ruth Spearing CNZM, MBChB, FRACP, FRCPA<\/p>\n

Trustee<\/p>\n

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Advocates NZ<\/p>\n

027 512 6356<\/p>\n

Ruth.spearing@gmail.com<\/p>\n

About CLL Advocates NZ \u2013 CLL Advocates NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

About Dr Ruth Spearing<\/p>\n

Dr Ruth Spearing CNZM, MBChB, FRACP, FRCPA\u00a0has been involved with haematology since 1980 and has been a leader nationally in haematology trials. She was the NZ Principal Investigator for many of the UK Medical Research\u00a0Council\/National\u00a0Cancer Research Institute trials which New Zealand took part in from the late 1980s until two years ago. These included the first ever trial to show that treatment\u00a0of CLL could lead to prolongation\u00a0of life and not just control of the disease.<\/p>\n

Ruth\u2019s many leadership roles included being the Canterbury Clinical Lead for the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Service, a Board Member of the New Zealand Medical Association, and an elected member of the Canterbury DHB Clinical Board. She was Chair of the Canterbury Hospitals\u2019 Medical Staff Association for 14 years and was on the Board of the New Zealand Medical Association. She retired from direct patient care for family reasons but remains active\u00a0in the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group of which she is a Life Member and has recently joined its CLL Working Party.<\/p>\n

A patient with CLL set up https:\/\/www.ruthspearingtrust.com\/about_us<\/a>\u00a0 a Trust in Ruth\u2019s name\u00a0 for research in the South Island which helped fund the setting up of the Haematology Trials Unit in Dunedin and some specific CLL research done by the Christchurch Haematology Research Group, amongst other projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE BLOOD CANCER GROUP CALL FOR PHARMAC BOSS TO RESIGN OVER \u2018DISGRACEFUL\u2019 AND \u2018DEEPLY OFFENSIVE\u2019 STATEMENTS Dr Ruth Spearing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[71,82,31,38,47],"class_list":["post-19739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-media","category-featured","tag-dr-ruth-spearing","tag-rachel-smalley","tag-cll-advocates","tag-pharmac","tag-chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/CLL_Logo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19739"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19745,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19739\/revisions\/19745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}