Health committee  I think we have to continue to focus on ways of reforming the system and better ways of using the money that's currently invested. We have to look very critically at scopes of practice of health care professionals. We have been very interested in the experiment in Alberta to lo

Health committee  One of the positive things that came out of the plan was funding for the Canadian Institute of Health Information. Pharmacists are one of the health care professions for which CIHI is building a better database, so that we can get a better understanding of numbers. We still see

Health committee  We're still short, and I think what's happening—the other concern—is that we're becoming increasingly dependent on foreign-trained pharmacists.

Health committee  I think the report on wait times identified better utilization of existing staff as one of the key things--actually taking a very critical look at how existing staff is being used. There has been some research work around that, and certainly some of the improvements around admini

Health committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The Canadian Pharmacists Association very much welcomes this opportunity to present to you today during your review of the 10-year plan to strengthen health care. While medication use is an integral component of Canadian health care, adverse d

Health committee  I think I would support that, but it's interesting that the practice recently has been that pharmaceutical companies have pulled their products off the market or made adjustments quite a bit before Health Canada has acted. It's been interesting. This is, I think, one of the area

Health committee  Perhaps I could just add that one of the things we haven't touched on a lot this morning that I think is important in terms of the work of the committee is looking at non-prescription products and natural health products. That's a very important area that needs some research. We

Health committee  It has gone extremely well. We launched the product into the marketplace two or three years ago. It's a web portal. As you know, we publish the big blue book, the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties, which is a collection of Health Canada product monographs. We also pu

Health committee  No. I think Ms. Wolfe gave a very good description of the regulatory piece that's already in place with respect to the profession of pharmacy at the provincial level that requires some level of reporting. I think what we see the agency's role being is much, if you like, less regu

Health committee  Specifically, that was such a tragic case, but I think it illustrates many of the challenges we face. The hard thing there was, apart from Vanessa and her friend, nobody really knew how bad her bulimia was, even her gastroenterologist who was treating her. There was information

Health committee  I'm glad you didn't find something that was completely opposite to what I'd said this morning. We know development happens slowly. I think, from the profession's perspective, we recognize that we actually have to try to change and develop better systems. One of the things we've

Health committee  Yes, thank you. The progressive licensing concept is an attractive concept, because I think we know from our experience and the drugs we've talked about—Vioxx, Cisapride, and there's a long list of drugs that we've had over the last 20 years—that we really only truly learn about

Health committee  I can perhaps jump in and give my view from a practice perspective. I think ideally you want quality and quantity. An observation from the World Health Organization's adverse drug reaction reporting centre recently expressed the need to actually focus on quality. I think one of t

Health committee  Thank you, Denis. Before getting into our recommendations that relate specifically to issues around improving drug safety, I'd like to comment on the concept of mandatory adverse drug reaction reporting, which we believe is being confused with overall steps that need to be taken

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning to everyone. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Pharmacists Association, and I'm joined this morning by Denis Villeneuve. Denis is our board member from Quebec, and he's a community pharmacist practising in Quebec City. I'd like to