Canada Doesn’t Treat All HIV-AIDS Patients Equally: Activists

By CHINTA PUXLEY

TORONTO (CP) – Drug coverage and access to treatment varies so much across the country that people living with HIV-AIDS are often forced to move to another province to stay alive, activists said Wednesday at the International AIDS Conference.

Each province has its own drug plan, which may or may not cover treatments that activists say are vital to the survival of those with the disease. Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council, said the Maritimes don’t have a reimbursement plan while British Columbia covers only the cheapest drugs available.

Even the federal government has different plans for people in the military, pensioners, civil servants and aboriginals, Binder said.

“It is a total myth that people have access and equal access across this country to medications,” said Binder, a Toronto lawyer who has been living with HIV for 14 years.

“If we need a drug not covered by our province or a federal plan . . . you literally have to move from one province to another to stay alive. And I know people who have.”

Patients can’t carry the burden on their own, Binder said, because the cost of drugs is crippling.

“The drugs that I take cost me about $5,000 a month to stay alive,” she told a news conference Wednesday.

Binder, along with other Canadian activists, made their case at the conference – a gathering which has drawn some 24,000 delegates from 140 countries to Toronto.

While much of the conference has focused the fight against HIV-AIDS in Third World countries, activists say Canada is not necessarily a shining example.

Randy Jackson, director with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, said poverty and sub-standard housing make it more difficult for aboriginals to get treatment for the disease.

He said aboriginals – who have an infection rate three times higher than non-aboriginals – are tested less often and in later stages of HIV-AIDS. They also die sooner from the disease, Jackson said.

“Aboriginal people living in Canada need and deserve the same access to health care and treatment as other Canadians,” he said.

Immigrants and refugees also have difficulty getting medical treatment once they come to Canada, said Esther Tharao, co-chair of the African and Caribbean Council on HIV-AIDS in Ontario.

Many either don’t know enough about their health coverage to visit a doctor, or they cannot speak either official language and don’t want a family member to translate for them for fear they will discover they are HIV positive, she said.

Still some are working two jobs and can’t afford the time or money to get to a clinic, Tharao said.

“It is time to ensure HIV-positive Canadians, who are from countries where HIV is endemic, have the same access to health care services as all other Canadians,” she said.

Activists at the conference say it’s time for the federal government and the provinces to agree on a national drug strategy so all Canadians are treated equally, regardless of where they live.

But some are wary.

Jean-Pierre Belisle, secretary with the Canadian Treatment Action Council, said Quebecers have a good provincial drug plan which covers much of the treatment needed to fight the disease.

Few Quebecers will support a national strategy if it means giving up some of their coverage and waiting longer to use government-approved drugs, Belisle said.

Both Belisle and his partner are HIV-positive and spend $60,000 a year on treatment. Belisle said neither can afford to see their coverage diminish.

Still, Binder said something must be done.

Under the current patchwork system, she said millions of dollars is being wasted – on doctors who have to justify why patients deserve certain drugs, on bureaucracy to evaluate whether those claims are covered, and on lost productivity because patients are home sick waiting for treatment.

“We do need a national pharmaceutical strategy,” she said. “It’s a matter of life and death for people.”