According to Deb Matthews, Minister of Health, her goals with drug system reform are to reduce generic drug prices, eliminate professional allowances, and recognize pharmacists appropriately for the care and service they provide.
According to pharmacists, we would like to reduce generic drug prices, eliminate professional allowances, and be recognized appropriately for the care and service that we provide.
Sounds like we all want the same thing...
Let me take you back to last summer, when Health Minister Number Two continued the search for the holy grail of reduced drug spending started by George Smitherman. What if he had called a meeting of all stakeholders in pharmacy and established a working group to really tackle the problems and find real solutions? He could even have had a roundtable discussion about ways to improve the drug benefit system in Ontario- Kind of like the recent Liberal retreat, except with more emphasis on substance and meaningful discussion. What if pharmacists were asked at that time to be partners in the process, rather than just given the token opportunity to present a proposal that was never to be considered? What if the current Minister of Health had engaged the pharmacy community in real discussions around solving drug spending problems earlier this year, instead of simply getting us to agree to a gag order that allowed the government time to hone their sales pitch? What if the Minister of Health, upon seeing the first outcry from the pharmacists and patients announced that she was going to have real discussions with the pharmacy community and work to find common ground? Do you suppose the fight would have intensified to its current level?
There have been multiple opportunities for government to facilitate meaningful discussion with our profession and our patients. They could have easily said that they were interested in our feedback and scheduled meetings with all who were interested in meeting with them without causing any political damage. Instead, all of their offers to meet have been laced with resentful and inflammatory statements. Even today, when informing media that it will take a month or so to implement regulations, Deb Matthews was quick to point out that she was not influenced by pharmacists and there was no room for negotiation on several key aspects of her plan. Why won’t Deb Matthews and the Liberals show us the respect that they say they have for us and invite us back to the table to find real solutions to drug spending concerns in the province?
We have done many things to ensure that our side of the story is heard. Over 500,000 petition signatures and countless emails, phone calls and letters from pharmacists and our patients have seemingly not had an impact on the Liberal government. By all accounts, they are determined as ever to push ahead with the reforms that they have announced despite the consequences.
Unfortunately, it may be time to start demonstrating some of the consequences of this short-sighted policy. It is up to us to find a way to survive under the new rules governing our profession, and survival will require a very radical review of our entire operation. In the end, it is the patients that will lose. The sad thing is that it never needed to end up this way.
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