Temporary
new conditions have been put into place for companies creating
medications, after five hospitals in New Brunswick and Ontario
administered watered down chemotherapy drugs to more than 1200 patients.
Heath Canada is saying that companies can keep making the drugs
can if it's done within a hospital and meets provincial requirements,
outside the hospital under the eye of provincially licensed pharmacist
or in a way that's in keeping with licensing and manufacturing
requirements of the Food and Drugs Act. Dr. Supriya Sharma, senior
medical adviser with Health Canada, says the conditions mean the
companies can keep providing service until a long-term plan is figured
out.
Marchese Hospital Solutions gave the watered down drugs to
the hospitals, but they say the problem wasn't with their drugs, it was
with how they were administered. Sharma admitting that the new
conditions might not have prevented the underdosing, as Marchese was
believed to have been working under appropriate supervision.