Health files

The latest edition of Health files features big pharma’s skyrocketing drug prices, the creeping privatization of health care and Canada’s new chief nursing officer.

Pharmaceutical company gets caught increasing life-saving drug price by 3,000%

“We need to consider more generally whether or not the prices of some of these new drugs are really justified. When you’re getting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the drug – however the drug companies justify these – ask them to open up their books and show us the figures that mean they need to charge this much,” said Dr. Joel Lexchin, Canadian Health Coalition board member, emeritus professor at York University’s Faculty of Health, where he studies pharmaceutical policy, to CBC, September 29, 2022.

Victoria clinics want patients to pay to “subscribe” for family doctor services

“We already have a two-tier system dividing people who have a regular primary care provider or place of care and people patching together services through walk-in clinics or other option… I’m genuinely concerned that clinics like those being established in Victoria, combined with a broader range of clinics that require some form of private payment, further entrench this gap based on ability to pay,” said Ayendri Riddell, campaigner at the BC Health Coalition, to the Globe and Mail, September 23, 2022.

Readers speak out against creeping health care privatization

“Business has an insatiable appetite for profits. There is a fixed number of doctors and nurses in the province (Ontario). Put these two things together and it is obvious that the end result of letting private health care dominate is the end of universality.

The government will not be able to afford the cost of a health care system that has to fund the need for growing profits of private service providers.

When scarce health-care personnel are pulled away by higher wages and better working conditions in the private sector, the public system will barely be able to provide an acceptable standard of care,” wrote Salmon Lee in the Toronto Star, September 29, 2022.

Chief nursing officer appointed by federal Health Minister

“It’s been an incredibly difficult time over the course of the pandemic. We’ve had nurses doing end of life care by iPad, working critically short beyond what was ever imaginable. So first and foremost, my message is a message of thanks for those who have worked in various capacities over the course of the pandemic. I really, really do hope that nurses who are in the profession find resources to stay, and I hope that we can make the workplace amenable to that as well. Because we absolutely need all hands on deck,” said Leigh Chapman, RN, PhD, appointed Chief Nursing Officer by Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, in CTV News, August 24, 2022.