Reaction & Responses

The Patient View

• Patient access to medication is critical to the delivery of quality care in Canada
• For people who are sick -- the quality of their medical care determines the quality of their lives
• When battling illness or disease, Canadians deserve the best chance medical science can give them
  Canadians deserve a system that can deliver the right medication at the right time
• If the delivery of health care in Canada is to remain a provincial responsibility, the National
  Pharmaceuticals Strategy must help each province improve their provincial drug plans.

The following discussion paper lays out a vision for a pharmaceutical strategy for Canada that focuses on catastrophic drug coverage and improved access to medications to improve outcomes. This paper also discusses health outcomes and recognizes that managing chronic diseases and their risk factors must be an essential feature of an effective pharmaceutical strategy. It also examines issues related to patient centered health care such as engaging patients in the management of their own health. The purpose of the discussion paper is to serve as a foundation for discussion and debate and as a tool for developing consensus.

The theme of this paper, from the perspective of the Health Charities Coalition of
Canada (HCCC), is that health-care consumers — patients, people with chronic and
progressive illnesses, and their immediate families — are under-represented throughout
Canada’s pharmaceutical regulatory system.