On September 14, the Canadian Cancer Society released a study that demonstrated how uneven – and unfair – the current patchwork of cancer drug coverage is across the country.

The report, “Cancer Drug Access for Canadians“,  showed that 1 in 12 Canadians face catastophic drug costs of more than 3 percent of their household income.

With more and more cancer patients being cared for out of hospital, this increases the burden of paying for treatment drugs for many patients. The average cost of a single course of treatment with recent cancer drugs is about $65,000 – almost as high as the average annual income of Canadians.

We are fortunate in that British Columbians and Yukoners have among the most generously covered programs, but in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island the picture is very different. One-quarter of the population in PEI and 29 percent of New Brunswickers aged 65 and over have no coverage whatsoever and are forced to pay for their own drug expenses.

How can we in Canada allow this to continue? Access to life-saving cancer drugs should not depend on where you live in a country that purports to have universal health care!

What do you think?

And what do you think should be done about it?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.