Cannons Creek Pharmacy pharmacist Kas Govind with just a small amount of the medication that is waiting to be collected.

More than 200,000 medical prescriptions have gone unfilled as New Zealanders are unable to cover the $5 cost.

The New Zealand Health Survey for the 2014-15 year shows the percentage of those unable to pay for prescriptions has risen since a year earlier and those in the poorest areas were getting hit the hardest.

In January, 2013, the cost of filling a prescription rose from $3 to $5.

To Cannons Creek Pharmacy pharmacist Kas Govind it was a "live" issue that was killing people.

He had a shelf in his pharmacy – in one of Wellington's poorest areas – holding a stack of medications where people had dropped off prescriptions yet never returned to collect the "essential" medicines.

It was assumed they were unable to pay for them and as the Christmas period neared and money got tighter the number of uncollected prescriptions on the shelf grew.

These included medications for diabetes, hypertension, and heart problems.

"Everything is important because they needed to go to the doctors. Whether it's acute or chronic is just a matter of time.

"I think they are all essential and that is why they are prescribed."

His pharmacy last year got a $2000 grant from Compass Health, a primary health organisation, and another $3000 for this year so people could pay for prescriptions and did not need to get emergency care further down the track.

The stacks of uncollected prescriptions did not include prescriptions that were never presented.

Hataitai Pharmacy pharmacist Kelvin Lim said the only medicines he saw people not getting were non-essentials, such as pain killers, and the choice not to get them had nothing to do with cost.

"Stuff that is needed to prolong life, they will usually pick that up no problem."

The health survey showed that about 238,000, or 6.5 percent of New Zealanders had not collected a prescription in 12 months due to the cost.

In the lowest socio-economic areas that figure rose to 14 percent and people in deprived areas were 6.4 times more likely than the those in wealthy areas to not be able to afford prescriptions.

Of those, women were more likely to not get prescriptions than men.

Adults aged 25 to 44 were the most likely to not get them with adults 65 or older the least likely.

For ethnicities, Pacific Islanders were the most likely to not pick them up because of cost, followed by Maori and Asians were the least-likely.