February 29, 2024
Ontario’s patients have waited too long for coverage of Take Home Cancer Drugs
QUEEN’S PARK – During today’s Question Period, NDP Health Critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) asked Minister of Health Sylvia Jones how much longer Ontario Patients will need to wait for take home cancer drugs.
“British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec all cover Take Home CancerDdrugs, some of them for over a decade. But in Ontario we let people face administrative and emotional barriers on their already difficult cancer recovery journey.
Minister in 2022 your government said it would consider covering take home cancer drugs. Now the Canadian Cancer Society is calling out this government. The data is clear: access to take home cancer drugs save lives. Minister how much longer are we going to have to wait for Ontario to cover take home cancer drugs?.”
All medicines in hospital are free for Ontario patients, modern cancer therapies are no longer delivered via IV but instead are in pill form taken at home. These therapies save time for patients and health professionals, but Ontario continues to force Ontarians to pay for cancer medication if they are not delivered in a hospital. Although the 2022 budget “committed to bringing together an advisory table to explore improvements to access to take‐home cancer drugs” stakeholders like the Cancer Society have indicated no committee was assembled. The Ontario NDP committed to funding take home cancer drugs in their 2014 and all subsequent election platforms.