Canadian Health Care Archives - Page 2 of 5

Health Canada gives ‘kiss of death’ to planned policy for rare-disease drugs

October 17, 2017

OTTAWA — Health Canada has quietly deleted from its website all references to a planned framework for rare-disease drugs that dates back to 2012 and was intended to improve the availability of such drugs in Canada.

Canada is one of the only developed countries without a regulatory framework for rare-disease drugs, also known as orphan drugs.

Durhane Wong-Rieger, president and CEO of the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders, said the decision “certainly seems to be the kiss of death” for the orphan drug framework.

Canada is long overdue for a national registry of drug company payments to doctors

October 17, 2017

Ontario recently took a historic step as the first province in Canada to introduce legislation that would shine a light on interactions between drug companies and prescribers. The use of the term “historic” here is not hyperbole, since the extent of payments by the pharmaceutical industry to individual physicians in Canada has never been known.

Other countries, such as the United States and France, have been making such information public for a few years now. But Ontario’s bill would provide a wider scope of transparency by including payments to prescribers of all sorts — not just doctors — into the mix, and even including payments from medical device companies.

Government promises tighter rules after company accused of diverting $2.6M meant for First Nation

October 16, 2017

The federal government is promising to tighten qualifications and improve monitoring of companies managing the finances of struggling First Nations following allegations an Ontario company misappropriated millions of dollars in health-care funds.

Crupi Consulting is alleged to have diverted a total of $2.6 million in government transfers intended for the Kashechewan First Nation, an isolated reserve in Ontario’s far north. The company’s former treasurer, Joe Crupi, is facing eight fraud-related criminal charges concerning his handling of $1.2 million earmarked for an elementary school breakfast program, including an allegation he spent $700,000 for his own personal use.

Potential changes concern pharma companies

October 2, 2017

Proposed changes to the way Canada puts a ceiling on patented drug prices have put pharmaceutical companies on alert, says an Ottawa intellectual property lawyer.

Earlier this summer, Health Canada released a consultation report entitled “Protecting Canadians from Excessive Drug Prices” that included a number of suggested amendments to the federal Patented Medicines Regulations, which are in turn used by the Patented Medicines Prices Review Board to determine the level at which a drug’s price crosses the threshold to become excessive.

RCMP launch 20 investigations involving Chinese vendors delivering fentanyl to Canada

September 18, 2017

RCMP have launched at least 20 investigations involving 70 vendors shipping fentanyl directly from China to Canada.

Mounties are working with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to seize packages of the deadly opioid, make arrests and lay charges.

The Mounties and CBSA, along with Canada Post, have worked together to identify the best way to flag parcels arriving from China at three international mail-sorting centres — Montreal, Mississauga, Ont., and Vancouver, which gets most of the mail going to destinations across the country.

Big Pharma marketing scheme banned by Ontario

September 14, 2017

Ontario is banning a new Big Pharma marketing scheme that uses electronic medical records to sell drugs.

The prohibition comes after a Star investigation found Telus Health has been inserting electronic vouchers for brand name drugs into its popular medical record software (EMR) used by thousands of doctors across Canada.

“Ontario patients must have confidence that (prescribing) decisions are not influenced by marketing programs or electronic vouchers,” Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins said in a statement.

Health-care, harm reduction workers call on Ontario to declare opioid emergency

August 28, 2017

TORONTO — More than 700 doctors, nurses, harm reduction workers and academics are calling on Ontario to declare opioid overdoses and deaths an emergency, as British Columbia did last year.

The front-line workers delivered an open letter Monday to Premier Kathleen Wynne, saying limited resources and poor data are preventing them from responding properly to a disturbing and sustained increase in overdoses.

“The consequences have been clear: lives lost, families destroyed and harm reduction and healthcare worker burnout,” they write.

Study questions why thousands with developmental disabilities are prescribed antipsychotics

August 23, 2017

Thousands of people with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities are being prescribed anti-psychotic medication by Ontario doctors despite a lack of evidence that the drugs actually help them, a new study has found.

Researchers with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences have called for “guidelines and training around antipsychotic prescribing and monitoring” for doctors, pharmacists and care home staff after finding that nearly 40 per cent of people with developmental disabilities were prescribed antipsychotic drugs at some point over a six-year period.

Canadians’ health-care costs have skyrocketed: Study

August 1, 2017

TORONTO – Health-care costs for the average Canadian family have increased by nearly 70% during the last two decades, a new Fraser Institute report says.

The study, which used data from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, says the typical Canadian family of four will pay $12,057 for health care in 2017.

Publicly funded opioid prescriptions increase, despite addiction risk

July 31, 2017

Doctors are prescribing more opioids to vulnerable people in three Atlantic Canadian provinces, despite years of warnings about the addictive prescription painkillers.

The number of publicly funded prescriptions for opioids increased by 26 per cent between 2010 and 2015, according to data compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information for CBC News.