Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to bring a pharmacist's perspective to this important work.
My name is Dr. Danielle Paes. I am the chief pharmacist officer at the Canadian Pharmacists Association. Today I am joining you from the traditional and unceded territory of the Three Fires confederacy of first nations, the Odawa, Ojibway and the Potawatomi.
I'd like to focus my remarks on the impact COVID-19 has had on patient access to primary care and how this has changed pharmacy practice in Canada.
When the pandemic began, access to regular community health services for patients became very limited. Lockdowns meant that many clinics closed and wait times grew tremendously. Because pharmacies are designated as essential services, we stayed open. It was a scary time for us as we didn't know how the virus was transmitted or how to keep our staff safe.
Adding to this, with everything shut down, patients were coming into pharmacies in droves trying to renew all their prescriptions at once. Our set-up isn't designed to withstand that kind of demand and so it caused huge pressures on drug supply. With most of our medications manufactured outside of Canada, we didn't know if there would be a long-term impact on the supply chain and so we essentially spent the first few months trying to manage and protect access to medication.
At the same time, because we were among the few health care services seeing patients in person, we became a primary source for reliable COVID-19 information. It's only recently that we've started to truly understand the toll that those early days have had on our pharmacy workforce.
Fast-forward a bit, and as the committee will know, pharmacy teams have played a huge role in COVID-19 testing and vaccinations. In fact, we've administered over 17 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, and some provinces are now relying completely on pharmacies to administer these vaccines moving forward.
While the pandemic has dominated much of our attention, the opioid crisis continues to rage on. Thanks to a federal exemption provided under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, pharmacists have been able to close some of the gaps in care for patients who use opioids and controlled substances.
Before the pandemic, if a patient came into the pharmacy on a Friday evening for a dose of methadone, the prescription had expired and their doctor's office was closed, a pharmacist could not dispense that drug. The patient would have been sent to an emergency department or, worse—as we've heard—they would have turned to street drugs and risked an overdose.
In the current environment, especially as we're facing shortages of primary providers, access to additional services and care from pharmacists is proving to be extremely valuable to people living in Canada. Unfortunately, our scope and ability to offer equitable care across the country is limited. This is particularly true in our remote and rural communities and our northern territories.
Point-of-care testing, prescribing and the ability to adapt drug therapy are some areas of pharmacy practice that are vastly inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another. For example, in Quebec, pharmacists were the first in the world to be given the authority to prescribe Paxlovid to treat COVID-19. A few other provinces are now moving in the same direction but regulatory obstacles have prevented many patients who would benefit from this life-saving therapy from getting it quickly.
Limited access to basic care during the pandemic has been the reality for most people living in Canada. Nearly 15% of people went into the pandemic without a regular health care provider and about half had a hard time getting the care they needed in that first year. The reduced access to care throughout the pandemic and the backlogs we're now seeing across the country have also led to delays in diagnosing and treating chronic diseases, which will have long-term impacts on our health care system.
Pharmacists are already equipped with the skills, knowledge and expertise to take on further roles in primary care and should continue to be part of the solution, but to do so, we need adequate public funding. Other obstacles include lack of access to patients' medical histories, onerous administrative tasks, and barriers to providing virtual pharmacy services.
In closing, I'd also like to recognize the invaluable role that pharmacy technicians, pharmacy assistants and other pharmacy support staff have played as part of our efforts to address the urgent needs of people in Canada. They have put their lives at risk on the front lines and their critical contributions cannot be underestimated.
The pandemic has taken a devastating toll on all of us, but it has also been the catalyst that enabled pharmacists to care for our communities more effectively. We now need supports to maintain these positive changes to health care in Canada.
Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to share this with you.