COVID-19 has exposed and magnified weaknesses within health-care systems. Drug shortages, which are a growing problem in Canada, may be one example of this.
Shortages hinder patients’ ability to effectively manage chronic diseases, leading to unnecessary harm. They also complicate the work of health-care providers, such as pharmacists, who must spend considerable time trying to find difficult-to-obtain drugs, and physicians, who have to prescribe alternative drugs to replace those that are unavailable.
Shortages may also increase costs if alternative treatments are more expensive. Disruptions in the supply chain due to COVID-19 may cause shortages because many drugs and the raw ingredients used to produce them come from India and China.