Alberta receives shipment of kids’ pain meds for pharmacies 3 months after order was placed

After a more than three-month wait, the first batch of children’s pain medication for pharmacies ordered by the province has arrived in Alberta.

The federal health minister’s office has confirmed to CityNews the first 270,000 bottles landed in Alberta on Friday.

The province has not yet indicated how or when the kids’ pain meds will be distributed to stores and pharmacies.

The meds were part of an order announced by Premier Danielle Smith on Dec. 6.

The five million bottles were procured through Alberta Health Services from Turkey.

They were intended to help curb a shortage of kids’ meds on store shelves during the height of the flu season.

However the imported acetaminophen and ibuprofen were held up due to regulatory concerns by Health Canada.

That included a lack of childproof caps and original labels that were neither in English nor French.

The first 250,000 bottles were delivered in mid-January, but were exclusively for use in hospitals.

Demand has dropped since order was placed

The demand for kids’ flu meds has since plummeted as case numbers have fallen off dramatically.

Duane Bratt, a Mount Royal University political science professor, suspects that’s why the Alberta government did not publicly celebrate the medication’s arrival last week.

“There’s a reason there haven’t been a whole lot of stories about the lack of children’s medication, because that crisis has been averted,” said Bratt. “So if they have that photo op, you’re not going to see hundreds of thousands of people racing to their pharmacy, because they’ve already got their supplies.”

BACKGROUND: 

• Alberta parent still concerned as shortage of children’s meds, baby formula continues into new year
• Alberta set to receive children’s pain medication
• ‘We still need the shipment’, Alberta will soon receive more children’s medication

It’s not clear how much the shipments cost, but Health Minister Jason Copping says Alberta paid a small premium for the medication.

“This is not an unusual circumstance, where a crisis happens and governments scramble to do something,” said Bratt. “But by the time they’re able to deliver, that moment has passed. Think about personal protective equipment, think about masks, think about vaccine supplies.

“And then somewhere down the line, whether it’s an auditor general or an Opposition party are going to say ‘I can’t believe you guys spent all this money and you just wasted it for this.’ When the onus was to do something quickly in that moment in time.”

Alberta vs. federal government 

Bratt believes part of Alberta’s willingness to secure its own shipment of medication was a way to assume control of the situation when the federal government could not come through.

“You have to put it in the larger context, real or imaginary, of how everything is Trudeau’s fault,” he said. “Whether that’s about trespassing, whether that is guns, whether that is fertilizer, whether this is children’s medication. And that only the Alberta government can solve.

“And in this case they did solve it, and now we have a surplus.”

CityNews reached out to Alberta Health for comment on the shipment but has not heard back yet.