A North Vancouver pharmacy has filed a lawsuit against the province, claiming that a provincial bureaucrat in the Ministry of Health refused to let it enrol in a provincial PharmaCare subsidy program because that person had a personal beef with company owners or managers.
The lawsuit was filed last month on behalf of West Lonsdale Pharmacy, at 137 17th St., as well as the East to West Pharmacy Corp. on 104th Avenue in Surrey, claiming both pharmacies were cut from the provincial program that provides a subsidy for drug costs on behalf of low-income patients. According to documents filed in court, both pharmacies were enrolled in the program prior to June 2015 and “derived regular and substantial income from PharmaCare.”
According to the lawsuit, in November 2014, the minister of health cancelled existing agreements and told pharmacies they would have to enroll in a new provincial program. But in May 2015, the assistant deputy minister of health told both pharmacies their applications were being rejected and they were cut off of the program in June 2015.
The pharmacies claim in the lawsuit the rejection was because of a “personal animus” held by the provincial bureaucrat towards the owners, directors or managers of their businesses. They also allege the bureaucrat refused to enrol them because of “a personal disapproval of methadone as a form of addiction treatment.”
The pharmacies claim in the lawsuit that the reasons for refusing to enrol them in the subsidy program were “improper considerations” and that the health ministry bureaucrat knew her actions would cause them harm “by substantially affecting (their) ability to earn income through PharmaCare.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The province has not yet filed a statement of defence.
