Would a Canada-wide bulk purchasing strategy save millions of dollars on prescription drugs?

The shortage of injectable drugs that Canada has been experiencing in recent months is an ongoing headache for health professionals and hospital administrators. Many surgeries had to be postponed recently and clinical treatments had to be suspended due to certain essential drugs, in particular painkillers and anaesthetics, being out of stock. The phenomenon has become so serious that last March, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health called in the main participants and specialists in the pharmaceutical field for special hearings in order to take stock of the situation.

Hospital funding reforms.

Quebec hits tobacco industry with lawsuit.

Hospital funding reforms.

Hospital funding reforms.

Hospital funding reforms.

Hospital funding reforms.

With the Quebec hospital network's difficulties continuing to make headlines, especially when it comes to wait times, calls to reform the way hospitals are funded have become increasingly common in recent months. At the beginning of the year, the director general of the McGill University Health Center and the Quebec Association of Health and Social Services Institutions each in turn proposed that hospitals should from now on be financed according to services provided, as is done in many countries.

We must rethink our health-care system.