Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services in
follow-up to my Member’s statement on the palliative care benefits program.
I’d like to quickly once again thank the Minister for getting her department to develop some policies and procedures to help reduce the wait times for palliative patients obtaining required medications. Unfortunately, I’m not as convinced as she is that it’s working well. I’ve talked to a number of pharmacists who have indicated they actually are unaware of any changes and they haven’t seen any improvement.
Given that pharmacists are an important part of the process — in fact, they are a key link between the department and the physicians, and ultimately they dispense the medications — I’m curious if the Minister could tell me whether pharmacists were engaged and asked to participate in the development of these policies and procedures to help streamline the distribution of medications for palliative patients.