For some, Liberal drug plan taking away medication from kids: NDP

Timmins-James Bay NDP MPP Gilles Bisson said that families in his community and throughout the province can no longer get their prescriptions filled, with many being forced to start a long bureaucratic process just to get access to the same medicine that they’ve been taking for years.

“My constituency offices, like probably every constituency office in this House, has been having parents come to our office completely stressed out that their children, who used to get medication from … the coverage that they got from their work benefits—[are] being rejected and having to go back through an entire bureaucratic process of trying to get the medication covered,” said Bisson during question period on Thursday.

“For young kids, this is a very serious issue as you well know, because a number of them can’t be off the medication for a period of time because of their medical condition.”

In question period on Thursday, Bisson said that the Liberals have let families down, putting them in danger of having to go without their medicine for weeks on end.

“You have a responsibility when putting together such a program to make sure that kids don’t fall off the system. I have … people coming to my door and saying, ‘I want to renew the prescription for my child and I was not able to because of the bureaucratic bungling of the creation of this new plan’,” said Bisson.

“Why did the government put in place a program if you hadn’t figured out how to make sure that people would not have interruptions when it comes to getting the drugs that they need? What are you going to do to fix it so kids don’t have to go without the medication that should be covered by the plan in the first place?”