Save Public Medicare! Information
The lobby to stop key elements of Bill 102 by drug companies and
pharmacists is intensifying. The Ontario Health Coalition agreed to support
the general thrust of the bill and the media release we issued today is
below. For more details, go to www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca

May 28, 2006
            Ontario Health Coalition Supports Drug Legislation:
      it will contain escalating drug costs without harming patients

Toronto – The Ontario Health Coalition held a press conference today to
express support for several key elements of Bill102 and the accompanying
drug strategy announced by Ontario’s government.

“The measures that the provincial government is proposing are reasonable
and the evidence shows that they won’t adversely affect the health of
patients,” said Dr. Joel Lexchin, an emergency room physician at University
Health Network, professor of Health Policy at York University, and author
of numerous books and articles on pharmaceuticals.  “The goal is to control
provincial expenditures on prescription drugs without shifting the burden
onto the backs of patients.”

“Any money that the provincial government saves with these measures needs
to be reinvested back into the social safety system, not used to finance
tax cuts. The responsibility of elected politicians for listing and
delisting of drugs must be maintained,” advised Dr. Lexchin.

“Patients require access to care and treatment that are sometimes provided
by drugs, and sometimes provided through hospitals, homecare, community
care or nursing homes. Escalating drug costs place competing demands on
scarce health care dollars. It is important that the spiralling costs of
drugs be contained to protect our access to the whole range of services
provided by the public health system,” noted Derek Chadwick, a
representative on the OHC board from Canadian Pensioners Concerned.  “We
support the widening of access to generic drugs that the government has
prescribed.”

“We believe that the provisions in this Bill to contain the costs and
practices of the drug industry are positive and necessary for the
sustainability of the public health system,” added Eduardo Sousa,
spokesperson for the Council of Canadians and OHC board member. “We will
continue to work with the Health Coalition towards the creation of a
universal National Pharmacare program for all Canadians, accompanied by an
appropriately rigorous regulatory regime for the pharmaceutical industry.”

“This Bill contains provisions that will effectively balance the need to
control costs with the need to provide medically necessary treatments for
patients.  These are positive steps for the public health system,”added
Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition.

“When these measures go through we need to be sure that we still retain
political accountability for what goes on in the drug plan. Regarding the
plans to create a new “Executive Officer” in charge of listing and
delisting drugs and negotiating prices, we support the efforts to negotiate
the best price for Ontarians’ medications. In addition, we will work to
ensure that the new powers for the Executive Officer do not enable the
current or any future Health Minister to evade political accountability for
decisions regarding what is on and off Ontario’s drug formulary,” she
concluded.

                         Ontario Health Coalition
                        Suite 305, 15 Gervais Drive
                            Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8
                             Tel: 416-441-2502
                             Fax: 416-441-4073
                          Email: [log in to unmask]
                       www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca





_______________________________________________
OntarioHealthCoalition mailing list
[log in to unmask]
http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/ontariohealthcoalition

-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]


To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header --  to [log in to unmask]
SIGNOFF SDOH

DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.

To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.
SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname

To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.

For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]

To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask]
SET SDOH DIGEST

To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html