Jim Keon and Jody Shkrobot protect their turf during Pharmacare 2020 in Vancouver.
VANCOUVER – Almost 10 per cent of Canadians never fill their drug prescriptions. They can’t afford it.
We’re here in Vancouver for a unique forum to discuss what every major national health care system review over the last 50 years has recommended – the need for a national pharmacare program. We can no longer ignore the fact that universal access to prescription drugs is a necessary part of any modern health system. Canada is an outlier on the international stage – most countries have some form of universal pharmacare coverage for its citizens. Given the collective wealth of our nation, this is a major embarrassment. As one participant in Pharmacare 2020 noted, we have yet to enter the 21st century when it comes to drugs.
How different our health system might look should we have followed Justice Emmett M. Hall’s recommendations in 1964 that Canada move to a national pharmacare system with a $1 deductible on prescription drugs. Since then we have had the National Health Forum (1994-97) The Romanow Commission (2002) and the recent National Pharmaceutical Strategy which failed to come to any agreement on the objective of providing the basic minimum of catastrophic drug coverage. Seems the provinces could not agree not to bankrupt very ill citizens who are faced with steep drug costs.
It’s not like we are saving the public treasury money.
OPSEU Diablogue 