Kids’ Pain Relievers Coming Back to Pharmacy Shelves in Canada

Pharmacy shelves are now seeing kids’ pain relievers come back as previously announced one million imported units have made their way to stores. In this time when the healthcare system in Canada is struggling to meet the needs of its patients, this comes as a sign of relief. Additionally, another 500,000 foreign units have been ordered.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos shared that the children’s pain medications have started showing up on shelves in pharmacies. “In some places, the shelves already show those units received. In other places it might take an additional day or so,” he said. Duclos added that in the next week, it is expected that “the availability of those doses will be quite clear in shelves across community pharmacies across the country.”

Furthermore, the health minister shared that an additional 500,000 units have been ordered and will arrive over the next few weeks. He also said that a separate shipment of kids’ pain relievers from Australia is headed for hospitals.

Duclos mentioned that domestic production has also ramped up in Canada as more than 1.1 million units of children’s Advil products have been manufactured in November alone by Canadian companies.

Last week, the government said more than one million bottles of children’s pain medication will arrive in Canada next week. According to Health Canada, there were 800 drugs in short supply and 23 were at critically low levels.

Due to the flu season surge in patients, hospitals across Canada are being overwhelmed. The triple threat of RSV, influenza, and COVID-19 has led to a huge number of hospitalizations including cases that could be treated at home if the medication was more easily available. Paediatric hospitals have seen an unprecedented rise in patients coming in with respiratory illnesses. Children’s medication has been either very hard to get or completely out of stock at a lot of pharmacies and drug stores. The shortage has even moved over to adult medications and people are having to drive to different provinces or cross the border into the US to get certain medications.

Vineet Washington