Canada is usually considered as a country with one of the best healthcare systems with free medications and other forms of treatment-to a certain extent.
A group called CanCertainty, composed of more than 30 cancer-focused organizations, hopes that provinces such as Nova Scotia would extend cancer coverage even to patients who are taking their treatments in pill form.
In an article published in CBC News Canada on October 9, Thursday, the coalition is trying to change the basic rules for cancer treatments in the province-that is, while drugs provided intravenously are given for free, those in pill form are not. This means that the patient is responsible for looking a way to pay for these medications, and so far, they are not cheap.
Oncologist and coalition member Dr. Bruce Colwell, who works in Halifax, mentions that drugs for kidney cancer, for example, can already cost someone as much as $6,000 every month. Even if they are qualified under the family pharmacare, they still have to pay over $2,500 as part of the co-payment option before they can get hold of the drug.
Because of the potentially high costs of the drugs, patients are forced to delay their treatment up to 8 weeks until they can get the funds they need or determine a way to pay for them. Some have also decided to move to other provinces that have a more universal cancer coverage.
Further, while some pills such as those for colon cancer have IV equivalents, the former still remain a much cheaper choice as patients can already do away with other expenses including nursing.
Some patients too don't have other options other than cancer pills.
The coalition and all its supporters hope that Nova Scotia will follow the health protocols of other provinces whose governments pay for cancer treatments whether they are given in pill form or intravenously.
Although they admit that by extending the cancer coverage, Nova Scotia is going to pay more, the coalition believed that the issue is more than economics: they are demanding fairness in treating cancer patients.
Aside from Nova Scotia, Ontario and other provinces in the Atlantic, are also limiting their support to IV drugs only.
