Sarah Fitt is the Chief Executive of Pharmac, New Zealand's drug procurement agency.  It has been found that Fitt and other staff wrote disparagingly of cancer patients in need of unfunded medicines.  Following a meeting of the Pharmac Board, Fitt has been made to apologise and the agency is to pay an external company to recommend how Pharmac can change their culture.  

Subsequently, a number of New Zealand patients have found the outcome unacceptable and are now calling on the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health to dismiss Pharmac's Board and Sarah Fitt.  A government agency that holds patient's lives in their hands cannot have at the helm a leader who writes offensive comments regarding cancer patients, nor can it have a Board that acts so weak in response to those remarks.   

Patients also want to see an independent chair of Pharmac's Board appointed, free of political bias, as well as a Chief Executive that has been recruited from outside the agency, something that has never happened in Pharmac's 30 year existence.  Such an appointment should also bring experience of leading a successful drug procurement agency that represents another country.