Canada HIV/AIDS care falls short, advocates says
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Canada’s government-funded public health system falls short on timely and equal access to medicines for HIV/AIDS patients, a health advocacy group said on Wednesday.
An unwieldy drug review process and a patchwork of federal, provincial and territorial drug reimbursement plans, each with different coverage standards, mean that patients often must relocate to get the drugs they need, the group said.
“It is a total myth that people have access, and equal access, across the country to medications,” Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council told reporters. “You literally have to move from one province to another to stay alive.”
Binder was speaking at the 16th International Conference on AIDS, a meeting held every two years where activists join researchers, funding agencies and aid groups to discuss the pandemic.
Her group is calling for more government spending on the health care system, a better national pharmaceutical plan and a streamlining of the drug review process that they say can take years.
“We call on our federal, provincial, and territorial governments to make a commitment at this conference to save our health care system, and to ensure timely access to medications for people with HIV/AIDS,” Binder said.
The current process begins with a review by Health Canada, the government health agency, followed by a provincial and territorial step called the Common Drug Review, which all provinces take part in except French-speaking Quebec.
If the CDR approves a drug, it is subject to additional scrutiny by provinces and territories, and many provinces conduct their own independent reviews, according to the council.
The group said it takes an average of 178 days for the CDR to review new drugs, while provincial reviews took an average of 464 days in the period between February 2003 and February 2005.
Some provincial and regional plans cover more drugs than others, the council said, while some pay only for the cheapest drug in a class, meaning that patients for whom certain drugs do not work will fail to get newer treatments.
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