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Speaker 1: Forgiven do for CEO Now when new survey is revealing

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Speaker 1: the reality of the HRT shortage in New Zealand, the

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Speaker 1: survey is underweight at the moment. It's hearing experiences from

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Speaker 1: women who can't get the hands on these hormone replacement

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Speaker 1: therapy patches. They say some of them are saying they

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Speaker 1: have to cut down their remaining patches to ration them.

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Speaker 1: Some are getting really desperate. The global supply of estrogen

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Speaker 1: patches has been running out for a while now and

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Speaker 1: farm ach reckon this is going to continue into twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. Doctor Samantha Newman is a GP high Samantha

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Speaker 1: cra Why is there such a shortage?

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Speaker 2: Oh well, I think fundamentally there is a less that's

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Speaker 2: been made, so it is worldwide. But the really big

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Speaker 2: issue here in New Zealand is that there's no other options.

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Speaker 2: So it's either transdermal patches or nothing that's funded. So

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Speaker 2: immediately it's unaffordable for many of our community, many of

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Speaker 2: our users and those that need transfermal estrogen. And also

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Speaker 2: because it's unfunded, pharmacies aren't allowed to stock it, and

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Speaker 2: us and my colleagues as prescribers, we're not as familiar

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Speaker 2: with it, and we've never had guidance in how to

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Speaker 2: use it and to be able to really confidently explain

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Speaker 2: to our patients to ensure they have good health outcomes.

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Speaker 1: Why is lis of it being made.

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Speaker 2: Well, they say, is because there's less yams. But I

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Speaker 2: think it's a bit of a combination of a production

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Speaker 2: line issue. Would you say gams, Yeah, yeah, it's made

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Speaker 2: from yams.

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Speaker 1: Who do okay, so they have a shortage of gams.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and there's only I was there's one the

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Speaker 2: main the main factories are in Europe and yeah, so

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Speaker 2: that's one of the one of the issues, and because

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Speaker 2: of the increased uptake in it. But I still think

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Speaker 2: there's a disconnect in that. People often think it's just

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Speaker 2: you know, it's an elixir for health that helps you

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Speaker 2: age well. But actually what I really want, what I

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Speaker 2: see every day is women telling me they got their

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Speaker 2: life back. It's helped people re engage in the workforce,

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Speaker 2: it's helped their relationships, and we know also it does

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Speaker 2: have health benefits too. But actually, really interestingly on my

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Speaker 2: survey that minimal people like less than one percent are

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Speaker 2: on it for health benefits.

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Speaker 1: Women if they can't get a hold of the patches.

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Speaker 1: Can they not use estrogen pessaries or something like that.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's another issue together. So there is oral estrogen,

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Speaker 2: but it's a bit it's not as safe, so that

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Speaker 2: automatically some people can't use it. There are some specific

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Speaker 2: ways of delivering estrogen systemically throughout the whole body, but

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Speaker 2: at the moment, the traditional ways in New Zealand are

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Speaker 2: actually for genital health, so not for kind of general

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Speaker 2: hormone replacement therapy. It's pelvic and vaginal health for estrogen pessaries,

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Speaker 2: so it doesn't do the same thing as the patches

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Speaker 2: and the gels do all over the body.

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Speaker 1: I saw ticks coming from somebody earliers saying that they

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Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of the HRT patches somewhere down

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Speaker 1: country in the South Island. Is there parts of the

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Speaker 1: country that have got stockpiles?

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Speaker 2: Ah, I think I just don't know what to believe.

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Speaker 2: I think everybody doesn't really know where they're at. There's

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Speaker 2: no consistency, and one minute somebody has some one minute

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Speaker 2: somebody has some coming in or going out, and it

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Speaker 2: just changes. So it's really unreliable and for a lot

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Speaker 2: of these users who are really vulnerable because he shouldent

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Speaker 2: impacts the brain so significantly, it just further compounds this

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Speaker 2: sphere and uncertainty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, saman that listen, Thank you for you time. Really

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Speaker 1: appreciate it's meant The Newman GP. For more from Hither

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