Latest news with #PharmacistsManitoba
Winnipeg Free Press
02-08-2025
- Health
- Winnipeg Free Press
Pharmacists reject tobacco giant's argument for more retail access to nicotine pouches
Canada's largest tobacco company is ratcheting up efforts to rescind a federal government order last year requiring that nicotine pouches be sold behind the counter at pharmacies. Imperial Tobacco's public relations campaign says that the ministerial order has made its Zonnic nicotine-replacement therapy pouches more difficult for smokers to access. Pharmacists — 'front-line health professionals who are already time-squeezed and over-burdened' — are 'increasingly disgruntled by the new demands of this order,' it said. SUBMITTED An advertisement in a convenience store that sells Zonnic, a nicotine replacement product to help adults quit smoking that is not authorized to be sold to anyone under the age of 18. Users place the pouches between their upper lip and gum for up to 60 minutes, releasing nicotine that temporarily curbs cravings and nicotine withdrawal symptoms, Imperial Tobacco says on its Zonnic website. The association representing Manitoba pharmacists called that 'very, very strange.' 'There's no pharmacist being disgruntled or frustrated about the need to have people access these products in pharmacies,' said Britt Kural, pharmacy practice adviser with Pharmacists Manitoba. 'This is what we do — we do it really well.' She said pharmacists are among the most accessible health-care providers and able to help people find the right product to help them stop smoking. 'Pharmacists are experts in smoking cessation and we want to help people find the best options to help them in that journey,' Kural said Friday. The pharmacy 'is exactly the right spot' for nicotine pouches that Imperial Tobacco and the government have classified as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). 'We appreciate being able to have them available to consider for people when they want to stop smoking,' she said. Not every pharmacist appreciates being 'the gatekeeper and policing an NRT product that has been approved by Health Canada,' said Imperial Tobacco's vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs. Eric Gagnon said the company has heard concerns raised by pharmacy groups about it increasing their workload. 'I wouldn't say that everybody's on the same page,' he said from Montreal. 'The Neighbourhood Pharma Association has raised concern about moving (nicotine replacement therapies) behind the pharmacy counter,' said Gagnon. That could place an 'additional burden on pharmacy professionals,' he said. 'We hosted an event in Western Canada with pharmacists a few months ago, and they also raised some concerns.' When the federal order was issued last August, Zonnic could no longer be sold where smokers regularly purchase cigarettes, and the flavours were restricted to mint and menthol. At the time, Gagnon accused the federal health minister of 'singling out' Imperial Tobacco, while giving pharmaceutical companies a pass. 'All smoking cessation products should be regulated in the same way,' Gagnon said in an Aug. 22, 2024 press release. 'This is not how good public health policy is made.' When Zonnic tins — containing 24 pouches — were sold in convenience stores, there was an accelerated decline in cigarette sales, said Gagnon, adding that they've helped 'many thousands' quit smoking. Nearly a year later, moving nicotine pouches behind the counter hasn't helped those trying to quit smoking, or Canada in meeting its stated goal of attaining a smoking rate of below five per cent by 2035, he said. 'We're concerned that either people will start smoking again or, as we have seen, people will start buying illegal nicotine products which often contain a lot more than the four milligrams that has been approved by Health Canada.' He said specialty and online shops are illegally selling products that contain six, nine or even 15 milligrams of nicotine. The push to get pouches sold over the counter alongside cigarettes comes after the settlement of a class-action lawsuit by provinces including Manitoba. Big Tobacco companies — including Imperial — are to cough up billions in after-tax profits solely from tobacco sales over the next 20 years. 'They need to get as many people addicted to alternative products — which includes pouches — as possible, for survival,' said the head of the Manitoba Tobacco Reduction Alliance. Cynthia Carr predicted after the tobacco settlement was announced in March that the companies would push for easier access to highly addictive nicotine pouches to grow their customer base. 'Not only are they handing over $6 billion or so, cash in hand, to start, they then have to start providing up to 85 per cent of their after-tax profits from tobacco. So if they only have a tiny portion left, of course they're going to sell every other product they can,' said Carr, a Winnipeg epidemiologist. The federal government cracked down on the colourful packaging and flavours of nicotine pouches after studies showed youths were attracted and increasingly using them, Carr said Friday. Wednesdays What's next in arts, life and pop culture. 'The company was marketing this to that younger audience, making them fun, fancy flavours — cool designs that were really meant to appeal to a younger population,' said Kural. 'There can be some serious health consequences to underage individuals using these types of nicotine products or any nicotine product,' the pharmacist said. 'That younger population may not understand the consequences that nicotine can have on their overall health and especially in the growth stage of their health.' Kural said she doesn't think that pharmacists — or any health-care practitioner — would support returning nicotine pouches to over-the-counter sales. 'We're trying to prevent this from falling into the hands of people who shouldn't be using it,' she said. Carol SandersLegislature reporter Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol. Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
22-05-2025
- Health
- Winnipeg Free Press
Making the most of our medical resources
Opinion The thing about common sense, it is often said, is that it's not really all that common. In life, and most certainly in politics, it's infallibly true that the path to accomplishing anything will almost never follow the simplest, most direct and most logical route. Decisions are the result of consultation, discussion and debate, and the inevitable insertion of competing interests and self-serving agendas into the collaborative process necessarily leads to compromises that complicate what was initially envisioned as a straightforward action to serve a very specific purpose. In the end, the consensus solution might end up addressing a variety of individual needs without actually solving the problem at hand. As the old saying goes, a camel is a horse designed by a committee. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS files Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara Given this tendency toward legislative and bureaucratic encumbrance, it's both refreshing and encouraging to see government and service-providing agencies arrive at an action designed first and foremost to serve the greater public good, as seems to be the case in the decision to expand the powers and responsibilities of pharmacists in an effort to streamline Manitoba's chronically overburdened health-care system. The province announced last week that beginning in July, pharmacists will be empowered to prescribe certain medications, including contraceptives and some HIV treatments, directly to clients. It's a common-sense initiative that will ease the administrative burden on doctors and allow patients to more easily access services that should not require a physician's sign-off. 'We've been waiting for this for a very long time,' said Pharmacists Manitoba board member Marianna Pozdirca. 'We have a health-care system that is strained and we have over 1,000 pharmacists in the province who are educated to do more than dispensing.' While all pharmacists-in-training across Canada (except in Quebec) must complete the same standardized licensing exam, graduates in some other provinces — including Alberta and Saskatchewan — enter the profession with wider scopes of practice than pharmacists in Manitoba. Manitoba, Ontario and the three territories are currently the only jurisdictions in Canada that do not allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control. The change is overdue. As Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux (Tyndall Park) rightly pointed out, empowering pharmacists with expanded authority to prescribe should help to reduce wait times for patients seeking other services in clinics and hospital emergency rooms. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara called the change 'a very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba,' adding that it's important for those studying pharmacy in Manitoba to know they will, upon graduation, be able to practise to the full scope of their skills and abilities. The bottom line is this: as was the case with expanding the responsibilities of nurse practitioners to include ordering and interpreting some diagnostic tests, prescribing medications and performing minor surgical procedures, any change that eases the burden on Manitoba's stretched-thin physician ranks should be given serious consideration. Matters jurisdictional and budgetary will need to be ironed out, of course, but the process should be focused on removing barriers and improving access — particularly for those residing in rural or remote areas, and those who don't have a family doctor — rather than creating self-interest-driven impediments. And as the government in this province — and, it seems, every other province — struggles in its ongoing and highly competitive effort to attract and retain physicians, those tasked with administering and funding the system should embrace opportunities to streamline and improve care whenever they present themselves. In the race to provide Manitobans with the health care they deserve, the effort is better served by a horse than a camel.
Winnipeg Free Press
16-05-2025
- Health
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba pharmacists will soon be able to prescribe birth control, HIV medication: NDP
The Manitoba government is pledging to give pharmacists more powers to prescribe medications, including birth control, directly to clients starting this summer. 'We've been waiting for this for a very long time,' said Marianna Pozdirca, a board member at Pharmacists Manitoba. 'We have a health-care system that is strained and we have over 1,000 pharmacists in the province who are educated to do more than dispensing.' Pozdirca and her pharmacist colleagues have approval to write prescriptions for a small list of minor ailments, ranging from acne to oral thrush, at present. Their full range of skills and consulting rooms, which are used for related assessments and immunizations, are underutilized right now, she said. Pharmacists-in-training in every province except Quebec take a standardized licensing exam, yet Alberta and Saskatchewan have wider scopes of practice than Manitoba, an online database run by the Canadian Pharmacists Association said. Manitoba's lone Liberal MLA, Cindy Lamoureux, raised the restrictions on these health-care providers' abilities in question period Wednesday. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS MLA Cindy Lamoureux noted that counterparts in B.C. have the power to assess and prescribe birth control. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS MLA Cindy Lamoureux noted that counterparts in B.C. have the power to assess and prescribe birth control. 'If pharmacists had more prescribing authority, wait times in clinics and emergency rooms could go down,' the MLA for Tyndall Park told the house. Lamoureux noted counterparts in B.C. — the first province to start covering oral hormone pills, Plan B and related contraceptives in April 2023 — have the power to assess and prescribe birth control. Asked about whether Manitoba would follow suit, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara issued a straightforward reply: 'Yes.' 'That is a very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba. We want pharmacists who graduate in our great province to know that right here, in their own province, they can practise to their full scope and that their scope is going to be enhanced,' Asagwara responded. Speaking with pharmacists gathered in the public gallery, the health minister said they want to make Manitoba a leader in leveraging the health workers' wide-ranging education. A number of regulatory and legislative changes need to be made, Asagwara added. A provincial spokesperson later confirmed the government is working on regulatory changes that will allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control and some HIV medications. Pharmacists should be able to start prescribing birth control in the coming weeks, the spokesperson said, adding that the remaining expansion is anticipated this summer. Pozdirca said pharmacists are cautiously optimistic because they've heard similar rhetoric during previous legislative sessions. Ultimately, significant updates would be beneficial for everyone because they would expand access to primary care and alleviate administrative burden on physicians, she said. 'We're not looking to be siloed off from other health-care professions. We are all part of the circle of care for patients,' the pharmacist added. Pharmacists Manitoba is advocating for enhanced assessment powers, as well as provincial coverage for more evaluations to reduce barriers for patients, especially those who do not have a family doctor or live in rural and remote communities. Manitobans must pay for almost all assessments that pharmacists can provide — even if they are free of charge at a family doctor's office or walk-in clinic. Alternatively, pharmacies have to absorb those costs. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. These health-care providers are reimbursed for certain drugs and dispensing fees in Manitoba. They can only charge the province for assessing uncomplicated bladder infections. Smokers in the province are eligible for free cessation-related counselling, owing to a unique social impact bond model set up by the former Progressive Conservative government. 'If we're going to allow pharmacists to prescribe for birth control or for anything else, they need to be reimbursed for their time fairly,' PC health critic Kathleen Cook said Friday. Cook noted the Tories campaigned on further expanding pharmacists' scope of practice during the 2023 election campaign. She urged the health minister to continue growing these providers' ability to prescribe to align Manitoba with other jurisdictions. Pharmacists are scheduled to meet with representatives from Asagwara's office next week. Maggie MacintoshEducation reporter Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative. Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Manitoba pharmacists will soon have ability to prescribe birth control, HIV medications
Pharmacists in Manitoba will soon be able to prescribe birth control, the province's health minister revealed this week in an announcement that came as a pleasant surprise to the industry. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the legislature Wednesday that granting pharmacists the means to assess and prescribe contraceptives is a "very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba." The minister added in an interview the government is moving "very quickly" on the changes, which will take effect "in the coming days and weeks." "We're trying to get it out the door as quickly as we can for pharmacists across the province who have been asking for this for years," they said. Pharmacists will also be able to prescribe HIV medications beginning this summer, a government official said. Manitoba, Ontario and the three territories are the only places in Canada that do not currently allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control. Emergency contraceptives, such as the Plan B pill, are currently available without a prescription from pharmacies. "Right now in Manitoba, pharmacists do not have the ability to practise at their full scope, the way that they should," said Asagwara, who pledged "to go even further" in granting pharmacists more prescribing authority. Members of the industry association Pharmacists Manitoba were in the legislature to watch question period Wednesday, after they were informed that Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux would ask questions about pharmacists' scope of practice. In her first question, Lamoureux asked if the government planned to "enable and empower pharmacists who directly assess and prescribe contraception." The question prompted a sometimes rare occurrence in question period: a direct answer to the question posed. "The short answer to that question, for the member of Tyndall Park, is yes," Asagwara said. Britt Kural, the pharmacy practice adviser with Pharmacists Manitoba, said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the response. "We had no idea that there was going to be something right around the corner," said Kural. The pharmacist said she believes she and her colleagues will be able to prescribe products like daily oral birth control pills, hormonal injections and IUDs, but the province hasn't provided those details yet. Currently, a patient must go to a doctor's office or a nurse practitioner to receive a prescription for birth control, and must then visit a pharmacist to pick it up. This regulatory change will save patients from seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner. "Quite often pharmacists are a first point of care for many people in Manitoba, because they don't have access to a primary care physician or a nurse practitioner, especially in rural and remote communities," Kural said. She couldn't estimate what kind of uptake pharmacists will see, but said her profession is eager to help. Women's Health Clinic executive director Kemlin Nembhard said any step toward making prescription birth control more accessible is worth celebrating. The change will make contraceptives easier to access for people without a family doctor, or for young people who worry about their parents finding out, she said. While Manitoba's NDP government has been offering free prescription birth control since October of last year, Nembhard said some hurdles to accessing these contraceptives persist, such as the requirement to have a health card. It's one of the reasons the clinic runs a free birth control program, funded entirely through donations. "It would be great for us to get funding through the province to support that program," Nembhard said. Kural said Manitoba's pharmacists would like to further expand their prescribing authority. Some options could include prescriptions to treat the minor ailments pharmacists are already assessing, such as strep throat, ear infections and cold sores, Kural said. Any such move would require regulatory changes from the province.
CBC
16-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Manitoba pharmacists will soon have ability to prescribe birth control, HIV medications
Pharmacists in Manitoba will soon be able to prescribe birth control, the province's health minister revealed this week in an announcement that came as a pleasant surprise to the industry. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the legislature Wednesday that granting pharmacists the means to assess and prescribe contraceptives is a "very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba." The minister added in an interview the government is moving "very quickly" on the changes, which will take effect "in the coming days and weeks." "We're trying to get it out the door as quickly as we can for pharmacists across the province who have been asking for this for years," they said. Pharmacists will also be able to prescribe HIV medications beginning this summer, a government official said. Manitoba, Ontario and the three territories are the only places in Canada that do not currently allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control. Emergency contraceptives, such as the Plan B pill, are currently available without a prescription from pharmacies. "Right now in Manitoba, pharmacists do not have the ability to practise at their full scope, the way that they should," said Asagwara, who pledged "to go even further" in granting pharmacists more prescribing authority. Pharmacists Manitoba welcomes change Members of the industry association Pharmacists Manitoba were in the legislature to watch question period Wednesday, after they were informed that Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux would ask questions about pharmacists' scope of practice. In her first question, Lamoureux asked if the government planned to "enable and empower pharmacists who directly assess and prescribe contraception." The question prompted a sometimes rare occurrence in question period: a direct answer to the question posed. "The short answer to that question, for the member of Tyndall Park, is yes," Asagwara said. Britt Kural, the pharmacy practice adviser with Pharmacists Manitoba, said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the response. "We had no idea that there was going to be something right around the corner," said Kural. The pharmacist said she believes she and her colleagues will be able to prescribe products like daily oral birth control pills, hormonal injections and IUDs, but the province hasn't provided those details yet. Currently, a patient must go to a doctor's office or a nurse practitioner to receive a prescription for birth control, and must then visit a pharmacist to pick it up. This regulatory change will save patients from seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner. "Quite often pharmacists are a first point of care for many people in Manitoba, because they don't have access to a primary care physician or a nurse practitioner, especially in rural and remote communities," Kural said. She couldn't estimate what kind of uptake pharmacists will see, but said her profession is eager to help. Women's Health Clinic executive director Kemlin Nembhard said any step toward making prescription birth control more accessible is worth celebrating. The change will make contraceptives easier to access for people without a family doctor, or for young people who worry about their parents finding out, she said. While Manitoba's NDP government has been offering free prescription birth control since October of last year, Nembhard said some hurdles to accessing these contraceptives persist, such as the requirement to have a health card. It's one of the reasons the clinic runs a free birth control program, funded entirely through donations. "It would be great for us to get funding through the province to support that program," Nembhard said. Kural said Manitoba's pharmacists would like to further expand their prescribing authority. Some options could include prescriptions to treat the minor ailments pharmacists are already assessing, such as strep throat, ear infections and cold sores, Kural said. Any such move would require regulatory changes from the province.
