Despite its recent announcements regarding a new provincial plan for prescription drugs, the province of New Brunswick still has two very different mechanisms for funding provincially-listed cancer treatments:
- If it is an intravenous (IV) drug that needs to be administered in a hospital setting, it will be funded by the provincial government 100%.
- However, if it is something taken outside of hospital (oral or injectable), the patient must cover the drug under public or private insurance and pay deductibles.
This is unlike many other provinces in Canada where approved cancer drugs are funded 100% regardless of how the patient takes the drug.
Facts: How much do patients and their families pay in New Brunswick?
For intravenous drugs listed on the provincial formulary, patients pay $0.
Take-home cancer drugs including oral cancer drugs and take-home injectables fall under a different program altogether. Patients under the age of 65 will pay $2,000 as an “Annual Insurance Premium” per adult and then a $30 copayment per prescription.
For a family with total net income of $85,000, the out of pocket annual premium would be $2,000 (per adult in the family) plus copayments for each prescription of cancer drugs and side effect medications (possibly $100-200 per month or more). For details about this new program introduced in 2014 applies to your family, click here.
What can you do?
- Learn more: watch the video, familiarize yourself with the issues on this website.
- Write, call, or visit your MLA to let them know that this arbitrary discrimination in how cancer drugs are funded needs to end. Many are completely unaware that the province treats intravenous and take-home cancer drugs so differently.
- Write to your provincial Health Minister.
- For a list of provincial MLAs in NB, click here: http://www1.gnb.ca/legis/bios/58/index-e.asp
- For contact information for your Health Minister, click here: http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/contacts/contacts_renderer.212128.html
- For a list of provincial MLAs in NB, click here: http://www1.gnb.ca/legis/bios/58/index-e.asp
If you need any help, please contact: [email protected] and one of our patient advocate volunteers will get back to you.
Please share with us any response you receive. We will be meeting with provincial representatives as we go forward with this campaign. And on behalf of all cancer patients who need this issue solved, THANK YOU.