B.C. has weathered the storm of the nationwide injectable drug shortage better than other provinces because all the province's hospitals are tied to a regional health authority which co-ordinates supply purchases through Health Shared Services BC (HSSBC).
Sharing of drug supplies among the health authorities in B.C. has helped avoid or alleviate shortages of some essential drugs.
"We have used Health Shared Services BC as a co-ordinating mechanism to deal with the shortage since we found out about it on Feb. 17," said Deborah Dunn-Roy, HSSBC's executive director of stakeholder relations.
"HSSBC contracts on behalf of all the health authorities so it wasn't like we had six organizations scrambling to try to deal with this on their own.
"In some provinces, hospitals are trying to deal with this on a
hospital-by-hospital basis.
"Some hospitals in Ontario weren't even aware of the situation and we'd already been
dealing with it for a week.
"We were able to get our strategy up and running very quickly and because we have a consolidated group of purchasing agents, they're very aware of the marketplace and were able to kick things into high gear."
The combined buying power of the HSSBC creates a large economy of scale that results in cost savings on drug purchases individual hospitals would be less likely to achieve.
HSSBC receives daily reports through consultations with the six health authorities to determine drug supplies and identify anticipated shortages. Northern Health hospitals helped replenish the dwindling stock of a drug used in coronary bypass surgery at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster and health authorities are being encouraged to share supplies of drugs that are not in high demand locally.
"We have a report card that signals to us when a drug might be going into short supply in a particular area, and then we're able to adjust accordingly," said Dunn-Roy. "We've had really good provincial collaboration between all of the health authorities, pharmacists, medical leads and the health authority CEOs."
HSSBC and the Ministry of Health are working with Alberta and Saskatchewan to try to find other sources of prescription drugs in other countries. In consultation with Health Canada, the western provinces are also trying to fast-track the approval process needed for those manufacturers to sell alternate drugs to Canadian health authorities.
A House of Commons bill unanimously passed on Wednesday that requires all of the country's prescription drug manufacturers or suppliers to issue prompt warnings to Health Canada and the provincial and territorial governments of any anticipated disruptions in drug production. The new policy will also expedite the approval process for alternate drugs.
Although the opposition parties wanted a requirement for drug companies to provide mandatory reporting of drug supplies to government authorities, federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq stated she still supports voluntary disclosure from the manufacturers because it results in information on supplies being made available faster. But she said if voluntary reporting proves ineffective she would consider bringing in
regulations.
