Source: PHARMAC
Remote and rural communities across New Zealand will soon benefit from improved access to emergency health care following a recent Pharmac funding decision.
From 1 March 2026, Pharmac will fund more treatments for use in community emergency care, ensuring that rural health practitioners, such as GPs and midwives, have access to the same emergency, trauma and pain medication as hospitals and ambulance services.
“Getting fast emergency care can be especially challenging for people living in rural areas of New Zealand, where ambulances can take longer to arrive and hospitals may be further away,” says Pharmac’s Director Strategy, Policy, and Performance Michael Johnson.
Previously, some trauma and emergency services in the community didn’t have access to the same funded medicines as Health NZ hospitals and ambulance services. This affected people’s ability to get the medicines they needed, when they needed them.
“This simple change will ensure people living in rural areas will have access to the same quality of emergency medical treatment as those living in major urban centres.
This will ensure rural health professionals have funded access to key medicines, that will reduce imbalances in health care that existed between city and country areas.
From 1 March the following medicines will be funded for use in community emergency care:
- PRIME services: droperidol, glucose (5% 100 ml bag and 10% 500 ml bag) ketamine, methoxyflurane, intravenous tranexamic acid, and enoxaparin 100 mg.
- Home births: intravenous tranexamic acid for postpartum haemorrhage.
“These medicines will be made available through Practitioner Supply Orders (PSO), enabling authorised health professionals to stock them in advance so they are available for emergency situations”, Johnson added.
Primary Response in Medical Emergency (PRIME) services are provided by specially trained GPs and nurses from rural general practice, who are first responders for trauma and medical emergencies in rural areas where ambulance services are not readily available.
Pharmac is also funding ketamine for uncontrollable pain in people receiving palliative care in their communities.
“Ketamine is currently funded for palliative care in hospitals, but not in the community,” says Johnson.
“Ketamine will be available by prescription or pre-stocked in rest homes and hospices so that people can get it when they need it,” Johnson says.
