B.C. eyes drug panel changes after Charleigh Pollock controversy

B.C. Premier David Eby has vowed to overhaul the drug panel after a debate earlier this year regarding the granting of medication for a terminally ill girl.

The premier is now openly talking about overhauling the secretive drug panel which cut off medication funding for a young Vancouver Island girl with a rare condition.

The story of Charleigh Pollock – a 10-year-old Langford girl with a rare brain condition – has pushed B.C. Premier David Eby to vow major changes to the government drug approval process.

Pollock’s case sparked public outrage after provincial funding for her medication was stopped. The NDP government then reversed its decision earlier this month.

Eby says there must be changes to the Expensive Drugs for Rare Diseases committee.

“We need to make sure that it works in a way that it’s the experts that are making those decisions, and that is taking place in a way that’s transparent and understandable to the public,” Eby said Monday.

“It did not work that way in the Charleigh case. We had two groups of experts fighting it out. One very publicly. One a secret committee within the ministry of health, speaking only through politicians. That doesn’t work.”

A doctor who resigned after chairing a subcommittee on Expensive Drugs for Rare Diseases spoke with CFAX 1070 on Monday.

“I have spent my whole career working in this area and I would be willing to do anything that might actually make it better,” Dr. Sandra Sirrs said during the radio interview.

“In my opinion, however, that means that the decision making has to be taken away from the ministry of health and put in the hands of the physicians.”

While Dr. Sirrs disagreed with the province’s decision to step in – she did agree on the need for more transparency.

“It is my personal opinion that the reason that there has been concern about transparency about the EDRD process is because the expenses are very large, and the number of people who benefit is very small,” Sirrs said.

Regardless, based on Eby’s comments, it seems more transparency is likely to come.

“We’ll have to find a path forward,” Eby said.

“I am supportive of the health minister’s decision to not let this child get caught between a battle between two experts, and I hope that the experts who are on the committee and who have left the committee are willing to work with us to identify a structure that’s going to work for them.”

Ten experts have resigned from the drug panel since the government’s reversal, with Sirrs claiming the decision amounted to political interference.