Doctors in British Columbia are asking the province to cover weight-control drugs in an effort to fix what they call a “two-tiered system” of obesity treatment.
Dr. Ali Zentner, a diabetes and obesity specialist at Vancouver-based Revolution Medical Clinic, has started a petition drive calling for medications such as semaglutide and liraglutide to be included in BC Pharmacare.
These are diabetes and obesity medications that could cost patients up to $450 a month in out-of-pocket costs.
Adding to the cost are the serious health problems patients can develop as a result of obesity and the costs of treating them, which Zentner and patients say further strengthen the case for insurance coverage of these drugs.
Approximately 23 per cent of British Columbia adults are obese. 2018 Data From Statistics Canada.
Zentner said in the petition that obesity is a disease and not the patient’s fault, adding that current obesity treatments, including Canada-approved drugs, are highly effective.
“The days of telling patients to take care of themselves are over,” she says. “Now [about] It’s a true medical procedure and the results are amazing, and go far beyond weight loss.”
The doctor added that treating obesity also has positive results when it comes to other health risks.
Obesity in particular is a risk factor for health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and sleep apnea, said Dr. Tom Elliott, medical director of the BC Diabetes Centre. He said prevention is key because treating these conditions can be “astronomically” expensive.
Zentner told CBC News the petition has about 1,000 signatures but has not yet been sent to the government.
“I’m not alone in this.”
Emily Henry is a patient of Zentner’s and one of the people who signed the petition.
Henry, a member of Saskatchewan’s Ochapowas Cree First Nation and whose traditional name is Kihitti Tepakop Iskotew Iskwew, remembers growing up without much food.
Born in 1960, she said one of her first memories was standing in line for rations with her mother to feed her family of 12.
“I remember her face and how hungry she was all the time,” she said.
This food insecurity continued while she was attending day school, but she said it was the same experience for families who had been through the residential school system or lived in foster care.
As a result, Henry says, even when food became available later in life, it was never enough, and he struggled with obesity for much of his adult life.
“I felt like I wasn’t satisfied unless my pantry was full, or I felt like something was missing,” she says. “I developed type 2 diabetes, as did all my siblings, so it’s not just me.”
Henry said he’s been taking Ozempic for over a year and that it’s “next to a miracle” that his blood pressure has gone down and his diabetes has improved. Because the drug is a diabetes medication, PharmaCare will cover it.
Henry believes that obesity, caused by the trauma of growing up under colonial rule, is the root cause of his health problems, and says he wishes he had sought treatment sooner to prevent other health issues from arising in the first place.
However, PharmaCare does not currently cover the cost of weight management medications.
“If the health care system could consider and look at it from that perspective, I really think it would totally change how we look at people being prescribed obesity medications,” she said.
In addition to the petition, Zentner said he has proposed to Premier David Eby at the 2023 meeting that the state pay for drugs directly, but that there is more work to be done.
“The Prime Minister thanked me for my time and handed it over to the Minister of Health, who in turn handed it over to Pharmacare, who [Canada’s drug agency]”So it keeps getting put off,” she said.
In a statement to CBC News, the province’s Ministry of Health confirmed that Ozempic is only applicable to the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and not for weight loss.
It added that Health Canada has approved semaglutide under the brand name “Wegovy” for chronic weight management in adult patients.
However, the Canadian Drug Agency said it had recommended that provincial and territorial drug plans, such as BC Pharmacare, not cover the drug because its regulatory application did not evaluate its effectiveness in preventing weight-related health risks.
The ministry said: One 2023 Survey A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine found the drug reduced the risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events, but wrote that “new evidence needs to be submitted to the CDA for evaluation.”
