It was the week before Christmas and Ronda Watkins was desperate.
She had to make a choice: buy life-saving insulin or stoma supplies to keep her body functioning.
Instead, Watkins went to the back of the refrigerator at his home in Conception Bay South, NL, and grabbed an old expired box of insulin.
“You play Russian roulette. You really don’t know [what could happen] but you know you have to have insulin, so you have to take risks, “said Watkins, 53.
“It’s different from having an old bag of chips or something, but I had to have insulin, and if it was old, that’s all I could do.”
Watkins relied on the Newfoundland and Labrador prescription drug program, a publicly funded program administered by the Department of Health and Public Services until its coverage was denied.
Without this coverage, she uses insulin samples from pharmacies, drains her savings and re-mortgages her home – all to afford the drugs and supplies she needs to survive.
Watkins is now calling on the provincial government to reassess its drug coverage, a call echoed by a member of the provincial NDP who said he regularly sends calls from people struggling to pay for drugs.
Meanwhile, the provincial government says its latest budget includes measures to ease the cost of living and that a change in a person’s financial situation could change the amount he receives through the drug plan.
Rhonda Watkins says she and her family are struggling to pay for drugs and medical supplies related to her stoma and diabetes. (CBC / Paul Pickett)
In 2007, Watkins underwent surgery for familial adenomatous polyposis, a genetic disease that causes polyps to develop on the inside of the intestinal tract. This procedure led to Watkins surgery with a pit operation, a procedure that allows body waste to be removed from the body through a surgical opening.
A year later, Watkins, 40 at the time, was diagnosed with diabetes and became what she called a “bad diabetic,” taking four needles a day.
She was on disability leave from her legal career, but still had access to her employer’s private health insurance until the company changed hands. According to Watkins, officials thought the premiums were too high and voted to abandon the program, leaving it without health insurance.
Enter the prescription drug program, and Watkins sighed with relief. The provincial government covered 57% of the cost of medicines – stoma supplies are not among them, unless you are over 65 years old.
But this relief was short-lived.
“They check it every six months and I was notified by mail that I didn’t meet the conditions or I had to follow up when I was monitoring the surcharge at the time it was 93 percent,” Watkins said.
Watkins said she was told she didn’t spend as much money on medicine, her child was 18 and no longer dependent, and her husband earned several thousand dollars extra for overtime.
“We took from our savings. I increased my credit cards. “I had to go to my child’s education fund,” Watkins said through tears.
“We all suffer. It’s stress from daylight to darkness. It’s planned. We have to do everything we can to save and save.”
Watkins requires fast and long-acting insulin and uses an insulin sensor.
If this happens at 53, what will happen when I’m older? “Rhonda Watkins.”
Receipts provided by Watkins show that she spent more than $ 7,000 a year on drug costs and nearly $ 4,000 a year on stoma supplies.
Her household income is about $ 70,000, depending on how much overtime her partner works.
However, Watkins said she does not spend so much on drugs simply because she cannot afford them, and now without any coverage, she is left at the mercy of doctors and pharmacists who try to provide insulin samples when they can.
The less she spends on drugs, the lower her total drug costs – which will be at a disadvantage when she applies for future drug programs or tax credits.
Same old story
When the phone rings in Jim Dean’s constituency, the person on the other side is more likely to struggle with drug coverage, he said.
“Oh my God, the people we meet who choose rent, heating, food and sometimes take drugs every third day to prolong their time,” said Dean, the NDP’s interim leader.
“If it’s a policy, then change the policy so that it works for the people, not for the end result and efficiency.”
Watkins said it was time to revise the plan to take into account inflation and high food and gas prices. The financial burden of her health problems on the provincial government’s treasury would be reduced in the long run if she had access to medicines now, she said.
Jim Dean, the interim leader of the provincial NDP, says people in his constituency have to choose between medicine and food. (CBC)
“I always thought the province would help. We live in Canada … I really lost everything. There was nothing, no hope. “If my province can’t help me, if I call the MHA and they can’t help me, what else can I do?” Watkins said.
“If this happens at 53, what will happen when I’m older?” How many more people will experience this? It’s not fair, it’s really not fair. “
Newfoundland and Labrador spend the most money per capita on health care spending, but have the worst health outcomes. Life expectancy is 2.4 years lower for men and 2.3 years lower for women than the Canadian average, a statistic that has been steadily deteriorating since the 1980s.
Dean said Watkins’ difficulty was an example of a short-sighted policy that did not serve the population or the provincial economy in the long run.
“If we look at the social determinants of health, we need to look at the bigger picture,” Dean said.
“We are already paying for it and we will pay more for it in the end.”
Dinn calls on the provincial government to review policies, taking into account the approach in the first place, and to expand the drug plan to include more recipients.
The cost of living
In a statement, the Ministry of Health and Public Services said it could not discuss Watkin’s case for reasons of confidentiality.
However, it is said that when a person’s financial situation changes, so can his or her right to participate in the provincial drug program.
The coverage of prescription drugs provided by the Provincial Security Plan, which Watkins has covered, is estimated every six months using the latest available data on drug income and expenditure.
A person’s coverage and co-payments may also be affected if they do not submit their medicines regularly.
“We realize that this can be difficult for some people. “Our government has taken steps in the 2022 budget to help alleviate the cost of living,” a spokesman for the department said.
“We will continue to work to provide effective programs and services in support of individuals, the elderly, people with disabilities and vulnerable groups.
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