A Gut Check on Equitable Drug Access
October 23, 2025
Some medications are covered everywhere in Canada except British Columbia. The GI Society wants to change that.
It’s no secret that drugs go through a thorough and often lengthy process to get onto the market in Canada – first, approval by Health Canada, then a health technology assessment by CDA-AMC or INESSS, pricing negotiations at the national level, then decisions by each province or territory about whether to list the medication. Since all those steps rely on a similar body of evidence, you’d expect that most provinces would come to similar conclusions about whether to fund a drug, right? Not quite.
In 2024, the British Columbia-based GI Society took a closer look at which drugs were funded under BC’s PharmaCare program, and they made some shocking discoveries – out of all the provinces, BC provided coverage for the fewest drugs, leaving more than 30 medications that were funded in most other provinces without public reimbursement in BC.9 Although many of these drugs were for conditions other than gastrointestinal diseases, the GI Society took up the torch for them all. It started asking the government to re-evaluate their decisions, and ideally to extend their coverage.
The result? There’s been some progress – in a 2025 update, four out of the 30+ medications are now available under Special Authority.10,11 But the GI Society points out that even though that’s better than no access at all, it’s “a path of administrative delays and additional barriers, with no guarantee of approval.”11
There’s lots more work to be done, and the GI Society, along with a provincial coalition of patient and health organizations, MedAccess BC, is continuing to hold the government accountable and push for improved drug access in BC. “We must do better. We're asking the BC government to recognize the impact of these ongoing inequities, to act now and to invest in the lives of British Columbians who are suffering,” they said in a recent video. “We're ready to work alongside the government to find solutions and create a system where everyone has equitable access to the best available care, no matter where they live in Canada.”12
“We’re ready to work alongside the government to find solutions and create a system where everyone has equitable access to the best available care, no matter where they live in Canada.”
Video by the GI Society12