Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.
I am actually, first and foremost, a practising pharmacist who has had the privilege to work alongside my health system partners and governments in our collective efforts to meet the needs of Canadians as we weathered the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years.
Today I join you as the CEO of the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada, a not-for-profit trade association that represents leading pharmacy organizations, including chain, banner, long-term care, specialty pharmacies and grocery and mass merchandisers with pharmacies. We advance health care for Canadians by leveraging close to 11,000 pharmacies across the country in almost every Canadian community as integral community health hubs.
Pharmacies are often the first and most frequent touch point that Canadians have with the health care system, and 95% of Canadians live within five kilometres of a pharmacy. Canada's community pharmacies dispense over 750 million prescriptions annually, deliver the majority of influenza vaccinations each year, and in the past 12 months alone have administered over 18 million COVID vaccinations to Canadians, reducing the rate of illness and strain on an already overwhelmed health care system.... [Technical difficulty—Editor]
As we continue to navigate the steady stream of challenges caused by the pandemic, and as our federal political leaders reflect on the future needs of our health care system to support our citizens, treat those in need and protect our most vulnerable, there are even more opportunities to unlock the potential of pharmacy as a partner in communities across the country as we look to building resilient health systems.
Pharmacies and the robust supply chain that serves them have demonstrated unwavering commitment to Canadians and health systems throughout the pandemic as critical partners in the timely delivery of products and services, in mitigating supply chain challenges early on in the pandemic, and in helping Canadians to access vaccines and tests conveniently in virtually every community across the country. Without our services, medicine simply cannot get to Canadians.
Our priority is and always will be maintaining and continually improving access to prescription medicines for Canadians. While there are differences in opinion on a number of key files, including national pharmacare programs or pricing reform on patented medicines, we can all agree on one thing and it is that all Canadians should have access to the medicines they need.
Recent research demonstrates that while 82% of those surveyed support a national pharmacare plan, 70% of those supporters are opposed to a program that would replace their existing drug plans. In fact, 80% of those surveyed of those surveyed continued to be satisfied with their existing benefits. Canada's priority must be helping those who do not have coverage and those with insufficient coverage, including those with rare diseases, without disrupting the majority of Canadians who already do have drug coverage. By taking this approach we can minimize unnecessary expenses and costs to taxpayers, and allocate money to the many other critical health care priorities that we're discussing today.
The federal government can demonstrate leadership by establishing national principles to ensure an equitable approach while maintaining the integrity of existing plans. The government has previously also cited COVID-19 as a primary reason for delaying the implementation of the PMPRB's regulatory reforms. As we continue to see economies reopen, we can all agree that the pandemic is not yet behind us. Canadians deserve to pay a fair and reasonable price for their prescription drugs; however, reductions in prices have unintended downstream impacts on the professional pharmacy services that Canadians rely upon day-to-day to ensure timely access, safety, appropriateness and effectiveness of their therapies. We are concerned that the impacts of the proposed PMPRB regulations and guidelines on patient programs will be severe, and that the implementation of these regulations during an ongoing pandemic will add undo burden on pharmacists and pharmacy teams as they navigate the impact of these changes on pharmacy operations.
We have seen pharmacies offer critical supports in areas of testing and vaccination, and we know that we're just scratching the surface of pharmacy's potential to increase capacity in many public health and primary care areas. We know that there is a huge backlog of health care services, such as surgeries, chronic disease diagnoses and immunizations, that we must work together to catch up on,. This requires that every health care provider work to their full scope and capacity to improve access to care for Canadians.
With pharmacies across the country now participating in the distribution of COVID tests, and many conducting tests on site, pharmacies are uniquely situated to support the health system with disease screening and prescribing and dispensing of antivirals such as Paxlovid.
Pharmacies can also create capacity in public health as we catch up on the one in four Canadian adults, and up to 35% of children, who have missed or delayed a routine immunization due to the pandemic. Evidence demonstrates that convenience is a key driver to vaccine uptake, and the accessibility of community pharmacies provides convenience like no other.
There's a lot of work ahead of us, not only to alleviate the strains the COVID-19 pandemic placed on our health care system, but also to ensure that equity and equal access to services are delivered to under-represented communities from coast to coast to coast.
Neighbourhood pharmacies and our members remain committed to working with the federal government and all stakeholders to leverage the expertise of our teams to create capacity and fill gaps in care.
Thank you once again for this opportunity to speak with you today. I'd be pleased to answer any of your questions.