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A Health Canada waiver that gives pharmacists greater authority to extend and renew prescriptions has made a marked improvement in Nova Scotia’s health care system, says the CEO of the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists.
Beverley Zwicker says the ability for pharmacists to prescribe a wider range of medications has taken some of the healthcare burden off doctors and nurses.
The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act exemption, which runs until 2026, came into effect during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Pharmacists have six years of training to become health care professionals, which they could put to better use,” Zwicker said.
“We just need to use people better and we’re doing that here in Nova Scotia. I think that’s the good news.”
The exemption allows pharmacists to renew and renew prescriptions and transfer prescriptions to other pharmacists.
Give pharmacists more responsibility
The waiver also gives physicians and practitioners the right to verbally prescribe medications containing controlled substances over the telephone and allows pharmacists to deliver medications to patients’ homes.
These were responsibilities that pharmacists did not have before the pandemic.
Some of the controlled substances include benzodiazepines to treat anxiety and depression, and medications that treat opioid use disorders, including methadone and buprenorphine.
Zwicker has urged the federal government to make the exemption permanent in Nova Scotia.
“The provisions they had in place worked well,” Zwicker said. “But more needs to be done at the national level so that the federal government gives full autonomy to the provinces.”
In a written statement to CBC, Health Canada said it will consider all views when assessing the exemption.
“As Health Canada moves forward with developing final regulations, all feedback received from stakeholders will be considered,” Health Canada said in a statement to CBC.
A A study partially funded by the College of Pharmacists was published in August this shows an increase in the number of prescriptions dispensed between 2021 and 2022.
The study found that pharmacists prescribed more opioid therapies in rural Nova Scotia in the two years after the exemption came into effect. There has also been an overall increase in the county in the number of residents seeking opioid therapies such as methadone and buprenorphine.
Chiranjeev Sanyal, co-author of the study, said patients living in rural areas no longer had to go to more urban areas to meet their needs.
“They had an alternative… they can access their medicines by contacting the nearest pharmacies.”
‘Evidence-based care is a very important intervention and solution’
Toronto physician Abhimanyu Sud says increasing access to opioid therapies is important to reducing opioid harm.
“People have called for greater pharmacist involvement to facilitate better community access to opiate addiction care,” Sud said.
“We are living in a time of…a crisis of opioid-related harm in this country and drug-related harm in this country, of which increasing access to evidence-based care is a very important intervention and solution.”
Zwicker is also president of the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities. She said the association hopes to meet with the federal Deputy Minister of Health to reiterate its position that the exemption will benefit the health care system.