Minister of Sport in Victoria to unveil 3 fundamental elements of a national Pharmacare system
Federal cabinet ministers have fanned out across the country on a budget-boosting tour. A prime focus of today's visits is to talk about developing a national Pharmacare System.
Kirsty Duncan -- Minister for Science and Sport -- spoke to seniors at the James Bay New Horizons Society, telling them her government intends to move forward on 3 fundamental elements of a national Pharmacare system.
The first is to create a Canadian Drug Agency to assess the effectiveness of new prescripition drugs, and negogiate prices to help keep costs down.
Second, developing a national formulary -- a comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescription drugs to promote consistent coverage nationwide.
" And the third piece, people know there are extremely high costs for rare disease drugs. And starting in 2022 we will invest $1-Billion over 2 years, and then $500-Million per year after that. And that is to develop a strategy for rare disease drugs."
The plan also includes creating the country's first national dementia strategy.
Duncan says currently someone is diagnosed with dementia once every 5 minutes, but by 2030 it's estimated a disagnosis will be made once every 2 minutes.