The Alberta government’s ability to secure five million units of children’s pain and fever medications during a global shortage is a remarkable coup..Pharmacy shelves will be stocked with the first of 10 air shipments of acetaminophen and ibuprofen beginning, hopefully, in about two weeks..But when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced Tuesday that help is on the way, she wasn’t only talking about Alberta’s children. The province will be sharing those vital meds with the rest of Canada. The expected supply will complement the 1.5 million bottles of children’s meds that Health Canada was able to secure, much of it yet to arrive from foreign suppliers..For more than two months stressed parents and caregivers have been driving from one pharmacy to another or facing long waits in doctors' offices and emergency wards, trying to get help for their sick children. Smith’s announcement at a press conference held at an Edmonton Shoppers Drug Mart will no doubt bring a collective sigh of relief during cold and flu season..So, how did Alberta pull this off? Well, it was an impressive team effort by many people who mobilized to make sure children will get the medicines they need. “This deal happened because the premier said, ‘There has to be something we can do. Go find it,’ ” said Alberta Health spokesman Steve Buick..“Alberta Health Services (AHS) did the deal. Alberta Health, the department, and the minister (Jason Copping) obviously have facilitated it. But the driver of this from the beginning was the premier personally.”.Buick said both Health Canada and AHS deserve tremendous credit for their efforts to secure the supply from Atabay Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals, headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. “There are rigorous conditions for importation of any medication into Canada. And Health Canada is supporting us by expediting the approval process, but it still has to happen. We fully accept that. We do not want to test or potentially violate any rules, or anything else, any rules on ensuring that medication imported into the country is safe.”.“For all the big noise about us versus the federal government, let’s be clear, this is an example of how the system is supposed to work. We want the system to work. It is working so far. We expect it to work.”.And AHS “came through huge,” said Buick. “AHS can do procurement on a scale that others can’t. And they’re good at it. These are the same guys that went and found masks and other PPE in the pandemic on a scale that no other provinces could. And we shared with the other provinces.”.Buick admitted the government has been tough on AHS. Last month Smith followed through on a campaign promise and fired the AHS board. She replaced it with Dr. John Cowell, citing the need for rapid decision-making and the need for the $15 billion a year organization to rapidly address crises..“We’re not out to destroy AHS or not have a health system here anymore or anything like that. We’ve been clear. We need specific changes in AHS. We’ve also been clear it has value. There’s a lot of value in a single health system on the scale of AHS.”.“We’re happy to give them credit for doing stuff they’re good at.”.Meanwhile, the deal with Atabay was reached after consultation with other provinces. “We were only able to go ahead based on the understanding that some other provinces at least will be interested. There was a minimum we had to buy to make this deal happen. As soon as that was cleared it was obvious we couldn’t use it ourselves. We had to share.”.“This is an example of Alberta spending money to get a resource that we can share with the rest of the country. It’s the way Alberta historically used to lead. We have a big surplus, we put it to work for people beyond just Alberta.”.But “hard agreements” are still being ironed out. “We don’t have hard agreements yet because the overall deal is still pending Health Canada approval.”.Smith said the Alberta government is working cooperatively with Health Canada and urged them to expedite all necessary approvals so that the shipment of pain relief medication can be loaded onto airplanes already secured to deliver..Drugs imported to Canada must meet safety, quality and efficacy regulations set out by Health Canada. Atabay, which supplies several countries, already has Health Canada approval for its raw ingredients. Packaging will follow Health Canada guidelines and retail costs will be comparable to what consumers now pay..“The shipment from Health Canada did make some difference and the market is correcting itself,” said Buick..“But there is still a global shortage. And clearly this winter is only underway. We’re only getting into the middle of it. There’s going to be demand way beyond any normal winter over the next couple of months.”
