Sue's Blog featured two posts on the "secret committee" of government responsible for advising the Minister of Health regarding new listings of generics on our formulary.
Please read Press Here Part 1 and Press Here Part 2
Further to these posts - I would like to inform the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we have lost almost 1 million dollars more from January - April of 2012.
Many of you are familiar with Plavix - a drug that helps to prevent future risks of heart attacks and strokes.
In Canada it is estimated that the introduction of the generic form of Plavix would save Canadians and provincial drug plans hundreds of millions a year.
The sales of Plavix are estimated to be 300 million a year - Newfoundland and Labrador's portion is 6.6 million.
The cost of Plavix versus the cost of the generic equivalent is about double.
The generic version was approved by Health Canada, December 2011 and was listed by several provinces by January 2012.
4 months will have passed before Newfoundland and Labrador gets the benefit of the new generic. That means that we will have spent $1,650,000 when we could have spent $822,500 if the generic was listed in a timely manner.
Why would people in Nova Scotia or Ontario get timely access when we do not?
Why are we wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care when we have people crying out for surgery to remove access skin - or waiting on cardiac surgeries?
Over the next few days I will list a dozen more examples of extreme waste in our system.
When will the Opposition parties demand answers?
When will the media ask questions?
What is going on in this secret committee? Will government release the minutes of their deliberations?
Remember now this is only one drug. Imagine what dollars have been and continue to be wasted.
The Auditor General needs to be called in. Investigation needed.
1 comment:
I have a few questions. Is there some sort of kickback or professional allowance given to government by the brand name companies to keep the generics off the interchangeable drug formula. Here is also another question to ponder. The provincial government will buy drugs on contract to get them cheaper.However they will not be cheaper to the retail sector, thus there are many occasions where a drug in the hospital can be as much as ten times less expensive than the retail sector. The patient in most cases is only in hospital for a short time. When released come to the local pharmacy and end up paying a whole lot more for the medication in retail because of hospital contracts. Also if the hospital contracted drug is a brand drug is there a clause stating they cannot use the generic till the contract is up thus causing the consumer to pay more than they should when a generic drug is available.
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