B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix launched a new strategy Thursday aimed at filling gaps in evidenced-based research created by a mass firing of Health Ministry researchers in 2012.
The strategy, which received $5 million in funding, comes in response to a recommendation in B.C. ombudsperson Jay Chalke’s 2017 report into the Health Ministry firings of eight workers.
Chalke’s report said flawed investigations and rushed decision-making resulted in key government officials taking action that had far-reaching and harmful consequences.
One of his recommendations was that the ministry address gaps in evidence-based programs that were created during the firings.
Dix said much important work was lost after key researchers were fired and some funding was suspended.
The strategy is about improving the public health-care system through robust, unbiased analysis and evaluation, “filling gaps created by the damaging impact of the health firings,” and making the ministry “a forerunner again in evidence-based research and analysis,” he said.
“I think most Canadians believe, and I believe, that public health care is central to what we are as a country.”
The ministry will work with the Therapeutics Initiative to develop a new program to help doctors with prescribing of drugs. The University of B.C.-based organization will also review how drugs are being used, including whether they are being prescribed properly, their cost-effectiveness, and new information on safety and therapeutic value.
“There are about more than 600 people whose principal job in B.C. is to sell drugs to doctors on behalf of pharmaceutical companies,” Dix said Thursday at a news conference.
Those who provide independent information number much fewer, he said. “And so what we’re attempting to do with the Therapeutics Initiative is to provide independent evidence so that critical decisions that often take place in a very short visit to the doctor’s office are based on the newest available evidence.”
Implementation of the strategy will take approximately 18 months to complete, according to the Health Ministry.
Funding for the strategy is in addition to a previously announced $10-million, five-year fund to renew and bolster the Therapeutics Initiative. The organization has provided education and independent reviews of the efficacy and value of prescription drugs for more than two decades. It had its data access temporarily suspended in the fallout of the firings.
Malcolm Maclure, one of the workers fired in 2012, worked with the ministry on the strategy, Dix said.
Maclure, former co-director of research and evidence development in the ministry’s pharmaceutical services division, won his wrongful dismissal suit against the province in 2014.
“This is much more than just a response to the ombudsperson’s report,” said Maclure, a professor and B.C. Academic Chair of Patient Safety in the department of anesthesiology, pharmacology and therapeutics at UBC.
“To me, it’s a refreshing blueprint for concrete steps toward a culture in which decision-makers and researchers collaborate on developing evidence that is directly relevant to policy.”
The ombudsperson’s report and recommendations came out of the firings of eight Health Ministry workers in 2012.
The ministry said at the time that the firings happened because of allegations of improper contracting and misuse of health data.
One person, University of Victoria co-op student Roderick MacIsaac, committed suicide as a result of the firings.
The government has since given apologies and compensation to the people who were fired.
