Three times a week, Kim Brennan travels from his home in Blissfield, N.B. to Miramichi.
It’s a 45 minute drive each way, but a necessary one, since he’s going into the city for dialysis treatment.
“I do pay my fuel, and a lot of times I’ll have a driver go with me…if I’m not feeling well,” he said.
Brennan recently found out he soon might be paying for more than just travel, but also the partial cost of some of his medications.
Brennan has had kidney disease since he was a teenager, and a COVID-19 infection a few years ago made things significantly worse. He’s been on hemodialysis since May 2024.
The treatment also means Brennan has to take several other medications to maintain his health as best he can.
These include carvedilol for blood pressure, calcium carbonate to prevent phosphorus buildup, allopurinol to prevent uric acid buildup, Aspirin for his heart, gabapentin for nerve pain, pantoprazole for acid reflux, and two types of Vitamin D. He even has prescription lotion for the dry skin that dialysis can cause.
But at a recent appointment in June, Brennan was told that the way he gets his medication would be changing.
“They were asking me what my drug coverage was,” he said. “And it was kind of coming across as maybe kind of being a bit negative, and that this was maybe going to cost me some money.”
Safer for patients
Up until now, Brennan’s medications have been supplied by the pharmacy out of the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton.
They’re couriered to Miramichi for patients to pick up during their dialysis appointments, free of charge.
“The pharmacist said that they were transitioning and they were no longer going to be providing our drugs out of the George Dumont,” Brennan said.
“They went over our list of drugs and they said that now they’re going to be contacting our, whatever local pharmacy that you use.”
Kim Brennan has been a dialysis patient at the Vitalité clinic in Miramichi for two years. But at a recent appointment, he was told that the way he gets his prescription drugs will soon be changing.
Brennan said he doesn’t mind going to the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy he uses for other prescriptions to pick up the dialysis-related medications. But he’s worried about the potential cost.
“It’s quite worrisome, most of us are on, like, I’m on long term disability and, you know, it’s tough to get by when you’re used to working and making much more,” he said. “I’m kind of preparing myself for the extra costs.”
Brennan is on long-term disability, and while he does have Blue Cross health insurance through his employer, he still has to pay 20 per cent, plus a $15 co-pay for each prescription he picks up.
“If you have coverage, they’re now going to want to use our own plans. And that could be a concern too, because some people have caps on their accounts and so that could cause some issues,” he said.
“I get seven or eight, maybe nine different prescriptions from the dialysis pharmacy. So that could add up to quite a bit of money in co-pays.”
Vitalité Health Network confirmed in an emailed statement to CBC News that the change is taking place, and will impact 550 patients across its four health zones.
The health network says community pharmacies can “better check for drug interactions, allergies, duplicate medications or dose changes that need to be monitored.”
Horizon Health Network told CBC News that it made a similar change for its dialysis patients in 2023 and 2024. But Horizon says it worked with individuals to ensure “patients would not need to pay out of pocket.”
Vitalité says people who are worried about the cost can enroll in the New Brunswick Drug Plan or the New Brunswick Prescription Drug Plan. But those programs, as detailed on the government’s website, have limitations and aren’t free.
Worried about what’s next
Brennan started an online petition when he was first told about the change, which now has more than 1,300 signatures.
He says he wanted to speak up because many of his fellow dialysis patients in Miramichi are elderly.
“Some people have insurance, some people don’t,” Brennan said. “Some people are going to have to go through their social worker and it’s probably a complicated process, you got to prove your income and everything else to get onto some of these programs.
While Brennan says he understands the reasoning about patient safety, he believes the dialysis medications were already being carefully administered.
“Those pharmacists, I think they were specifically for the kidney dialysis area. So they were very aware of drug interactions specifically for dialysis patients and they had easy access to all the specialists that are there,” he said.
Brennan is also worried about what this means for dialysis care in the long term, and has concerns that one day he’ll have to travel even further for treatment.
“When they start chipping away at things like this, who knows what they’re going to try to take away next,” he said.
But for now, he’s hoping the government will reverse the change so he and his fellow patients can continue the routine they’ve been on for years.
“It’s tough to try to fight something like this when you get a lot of fatigue and brain fog and a lot of other side effects from being on dialysis,” he said. “But I still felt it was very important to bring this to the government’s attention.”
