Thank you, Terry.
Thank you to the Standing Committee on Health for the opportunity to appear today.
I join you today to represent the partnership between the Canadian Lung Association and the Canadian Thoracic Society. The Canadian Thoracic Society, or CTS, is Canada's national specialty society for respirology. We are an interdisciplinary professional association of health care practitioners that includes physicians and a wide range of health care professionals from across the country.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world and in Canada, health care professionals and patients with lung disease began to ask questions about how best to manage their conditions under this new reality. Health professionals asked questions regarding how to manage acute and chronic lung symptoms, which medicines were safe to prescribe to patients, or whether there were any medicines that perhaps they shouldn't prescribe to patients during the pandemic. Similarly, patients were asking us questions about what they could do themselves to best protect themselves during the pandemic. Should they visit their doctors? Should they go to the emergency room or to the hospital in case they need to? How do they know if they have had a COVID-19 infection?
As the medical and scientific authority on lung health, the CTS and its members are ideally suited to guide Canadians through this challenging and unprecedented time. The Canadian Thoracic Society is Canada's leader in the development and dissemination of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. This work is strengthened by our partnership with the Canadian Lung Association, which then translates these guidelines into public and patient educational materials and programs. Our collaboration allows patients to access the most up-to-date evidence-based information and medical expertise on issues impacting their lung health.
Since the pandemic began, the Canadian Thoracic Society has been extremely active in developing and disseminating documents on best practices for one's health in the time of COVID-19. Thus far, we have developed a website accessible by anyone, and we've developed clinical guidance for the optimal management of asthma, COPD—also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is the number one cause of hospitalizations across the country—and sleep disorder and breathing.
We've collaborated with Health Canada, the pharmaceutical industry and various associations, such as the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Pharmacists Association, to develop a mitigation strategy for patients and clinicians in the event of an inhaler shortage, primarily speaking about a drug named salbutamol, which is a rescue inhaler used commonly by many patients. We're about to publish recommendations on intensive care unit triage thresholds for lung conditions like COPD and cystic fibrosis to assist health care providers and health systems in decision-making in the event of a major surge in hospitalizations.
The partnership with the Canadian Lung Association has been critical, as they have adapted these evidence-based recommendations and created educational infographics for patients with asthma and COPD to provide, in plain language, guidance on managing their condition during COVID-19.
For Canadians living with lung disease, there has never been a more important time to make certain that their condition is well controlled. This is important not only to them, for their well-being, but also for the well-being and protection of our health systems. Our partnership between the CTS and the Canadian Lung Association really gets the best evidence into action.
I'm very pleased to be here today to help support Canadians during this respiratory pandemic. We need to ensure that health charities such as the Canadian Lung Association can continue to offer these critical services now and into the future.
Thank you.