Kiwi women struggle to get life-changing menopause treatment

Women have opened up about the crippling toll that life-changing therapy shortages are taking on their lives — despite the number of patches being brought into New Zealand doubling in the last three years.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) uses tablets or patches to help relieve some of the symptoms of menopause by replacing oestrogen that ovaries no longer make during and after menopause.

According to Pharmac, demand for patches has more than doubled in the last three years from 1.2 million patches in 2020 and 2021 to over 3 million patches in 2022 and 2023.

This demand increase alongside industry supply chain issues have been ongoing since 2020, causing a headache for women and for the pharmacies who are continually out of stock.

"Pharmacists end up in this terrible situation where we have to decide who gets the patch, and who doesn't," said Mangawhai Pharmacist Lanny Wong.

Wong said some women will go to their doctors specifically to ask for HRT as their preferred option to treat symptoms.

"A lot of people are very frustrated with the situation. We [pharmacists] spend a lot of time trying to source this medicine," she said.

"It's been an ongoing issue and there's no real resolution in sight," she said.

Most patches last from three days to a week, and without them, menopausal symptoms can return within hours or days, causing agony for women like Andrea Mair and Belinda King.

"I don't understand why something that is small and simple, that is a huge requirement worldwide... can be on a shortage this long," said King.

King shared that HRT has been "hugely life changing" and that she wouldn't be able to cope with the immense fatigue without it.

"It is concerning because if I'm having these [patches] to reduce all the symptoms, it means without them I'm going to go backwards and it's going to be hard in daily life."

Another HRT user Andrea Mair said it was "quite stressful" not knowing what was going on when she began experiencing symptoms such as memory loss, acne, mood changes and heart palpitations.

"When I was getting symptoms, I started researching online and it was indicating that HRT was the gold standard in perimenopause and menopause," she said.

Mair has felt the frustration continue after struggling to get prescribed HRT patches in her town.

"What I was doing is ringing other towns nearby and seeing if they've got it and then travelling," she said.

Other oestrogen-only HRT patch brands have been prescribed as alternatives while shortages persist, however not all hormones can be treated the same way.

"I've been put on the Estraderm MX before; however I had breakthrough symptoms so it didn't work for me," said Mair.

Menopause doctor Linda Dear said HRT is finally being seen for what it really is — a good therapy option for women.

"We vary in how sensitive we are to hormones in general, and the hormones they use in the medications, so some women only get on with certain patch brands".

She wants alternatives such as oestradiol gels — which are products that deliver oestradiol through the skin — to be officially recognised by Medsafe.

"At the moment gels can prescribed here but they are off-licensed, so they are not recognised by Medsafe."

"It's really important that we try and make it easy for women to get access to this therapy, because it shouldn't be this hard to get hormones," she said.