An aboriginal woman living in Winnipeg is appealing a demand that she switch medications for a health problem, saying the federal government's efforts to cut drug costs for First Nations people have gone too far.
 
Doreen Demas, 50, is blind and has diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.  She takes medications that require an extra drug, a proton pump inhibitor, to protect her stomach.

Demas uses Health Canada's non-insured health benefits program, which provides First Nations and Inuit people with some health services not covered by provincial health programs or private insurance.

She was surprised when her local drugstore told her Health Canada said she had to switch her proton pump inhibitor, Pantoloc, to one of several less expensive alternatives.

"I was really angry, because I'm trying to look after myself and my health the best I can, and it seems to me that they're putting up roadblocks," she said.

Tried alternative drug already

Demas said she'd tried one of the alternative drugs, Losec, already, but found it didn't work for her. She will be required to try replacing Pantoloc with another drug called Pariet.

"If something works, why should I change it?" she said.

"I don't think that I should have to ... be fighting with the non-insured health benefits program about which medications they think I should take.  Like, none of them even know me.

"I would challenge any of them to come down and see what I have to face on a daily basis.  All they're thinking about is, 'How much can we save?' at the risk of people's health."

Demas is appealing Health Canada's decision.

Policy common in drug programs

The government's non-insured health benefits program has a policy of covering the lowest-cost alternative drug, which means clients are reimbursed only for the lowest-priced drug  — often a generic one — in a group of drugs that are considered interchangeable.

Officials with Health Canada say extensive research on the matter suggests the switch in proton pump inhibitors should not have an impact on anyone's health.

The drug at issue is one of the most commonly prescribed in Canada, officials said.  The department hopes to save $2 million per year with the substitution.

"This is consistent with what many other publicly funded drug plans across the country do," Scott Doidge, who manages the First Nations pharmacy program, told CBC News.

"In fact, Manitoba pharmacare has a policy that is identical to our own."

The Assembly of First Nations isn't convinced the new policy won't be detrimental to health; it's conducting its own review of the change.