My question is for the Minister of Health. My constituent Kirsten has experienced great challenges accessing take-home cancer drugs. Kirsten was weeks away from losing access to life-saving medication all because Ontario does not automatically cover the cost of take-home cancer drugs. While on medication to help prevent a recurrence of breast cancer, Kirsten lost her job due to downsizing. Along with her income, she lost benefits. She was shocked to learn that Ontario does not automatically cover take-home cancer drugs. This is a long-standing broken promise of this government. To quote Kirsten: “To know that there’s this treatment that was so important to be on and the stress of not being able to potentially have it is near debilitating.”

Speaker, can the Minister of Health tell Kirsten when will Ontario cover the cost of take-home cancer drugs?

Interjections.

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec—they all cover take-home cancer drugs, some of them for decades. But in Ontario, good people like Kirsten face administrative and emotional barriers on their already difficult health recovery journey from cancer.

In 2022, your government said it would look at covering take-home cancer drugs. Speaker, today, the Canadian Cancer Society is calling out this government.

Access to take-home cancer drugs saves lives. Ask any member of RNAO here today. Minister, how much longer are we going to have to wait until Ontario covers take-home cancer drugs?

Cancer is a debilitating disease. A lot of us have personal experiences with it and so I do empathize with the patient. Our government will continue to work to ensure Ontarians have access to the care they need when they need it.

In Ontario, take-home cancer drugs are funded both by the New Drug Funding Program and the Ontario Drug Benefit Program. In 2022, our government spent over $1.7 billion on cancer drugs, 58% of which went toward take-home cancer drugs.

According to a recent report, while Ontario has the second-highest incidence rate of new cancer cases compared to other provinces and territories, we’re doing a good job on treating them because we have the third-lowest mortality rate for cancer in Canada, and that’s thanks to our great health care providers.

As part of budget 2022-23, an advisory table was struck with a mandate to explore improvements to access for take-home cancer drugs and we’ve already taken action, expanding the use of safe and effective biosimilar drugs while allowing our government to reinvest in new drug therapies to support more people receiving more accessible care.

As I indicated in my answer, in 2022, for example, our government spent over $1.7 billion on cancer drugs, 58% of which went toward take-home cancer drugs. So we’re continuing to work with our stakeholders and partners on further discussions and we’ll continue to look at that.

But our government is also making health care more accessible for everybody closer to home, and I know this is welcomed by cancer patients. For example, we funded 49 MRI operations in hospitals in small and rural communities, which is very much appreciated, so people can get a diagnosis easier.

We’re also funding community paramedicine. As I mentioned earlier, we have the pharmacist funding with 700,000 assessments in the pharmacies happening just this year alone. So we’re doing everything we can, in addition to our primary care expansion at $110 million, to make sure that care is closer to home for everyone.