Release: Who Speaks for Patients?

Open Letter to the Prime Minister: Who Speaks for Patients?

Ottawa September 9, 2004 - A coalition of patient health groups urged Prime Minister Paul Martin and the Premiers today to ensure any pan-Canadian catastrophic drug program will put patient health before cost cutting.

"Medicines aren't one-size-fits-all," said Linda Wilhelm, who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for 21 years. "If public drug plans are reluctant to cover the newest drugs because of cost, what happens to the patients who have no other option? Canadians want cures. That's the whole point of funding research through our taxes and charitable donations: to find new hope for people living with debilitating and life threatening diseases. When research leads to new treatments, it makes no sense for these treatments to be withheld from Canadians or only made available after mountains of paperwork. The current pharmacare programs in this country are very slow to make new treatments available, long after safety and efficacy have been proven."

In a letter to the Prime Minister sent earlier this month and released today, the Best Medicines Coalition said the pharmacare debate has focused too much on which level of government should pay and not enough about what treatments are best for patients. The Coalition is concerned that such a program could be designed without the benefit of input from the Canadian patients who are most at risk.

"Don't limit our ability to get well," Wilhelm urged the First Ministers. "Doctors need the right medicines for their patients, just like mechanics need the right tools to fix cars. Canadians and their doctors need to choose medicines based on what works best rather than on simple cost containment."

The groups gave the Prime Minister a list of recommendations to take up next week with his provincial counterparts including:

• Ensure that all Canadians get the medicines they need, regardless of where they live, their age or economic status.
• Make sure patients groups are included when governments meet to negotiate health issues.
• Remove the barriers that limit people's ability to get the medicines that would best treat their condition.

The Best Medicines Coalition is an alliance of representatives from a broad base of organizations and Canadians concerned about effective health care. The group believes the safe, timely and equitable access to the best evidence-based medicines is a key component of effective health-care treatment and prevention for all Canadians.

Organizations endorsing this document include: The Arthritis Society, The Asthma Society of Canada, Arthritis Consumer Experts, CARP Canada's Association for the Fifty-Plus, Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada, Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance, Canadian Treatment Action Council, Canadian Hemophilia Society, Canadian Breast Cancer Network, Canadian Hepatitis C Network/Hepatitis C Foundation of Québec, HepCure, Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada, Canadian Cancer Advocacy Network.