Vanessa’s Law makes it mandatory to share information on harmful side effects – but in three years of data reviewed by The Globe, hundreds of institutions reported no cases
Mr. Young’s advocacy as a private citizen and MP helped create the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, or Vanessa’s Law, passed in 2014.
Spokesperson Lisa Cipriano said the Scarborough Health Network, which reported 37 incidents during the three-year period across eight sites, including three major urban hospitals, was also meeting its obligations.
He said UHN’s comparatively low numbers can be attributed to the network moving from a paper-based system that was less streamlined, the pressures of the pandemic, and the hospital’s interpretation of the law.
Anne Génier, senior media relations adviser at Health Canada, said in an e-mailed statement that, according to the law, hospitals must report all serious adverse drug reactions, including known effects and those that are unexpected.
However, after the implementation of the law, the department expected that hospitals would need time and resources to ramp up reporting, adding in an e-mailed statement that the pandemic could have played a role.
The two institutions with the most reports, CHU de Québec–Laval University and Vancouver General Hospital, have created more user-friendly systems separate from Health Canada’s mechanism to provide this data to the regulator.
The original article contains 1,976 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Dr. Hohl believes the issue is one of system design. The emergency-room doctor at Vancouver General Hospital said “they’re asking people like myself who have a waiting room of patients who’ve been sitting there for 10 hours waiting to see me to take 20 minutes to report all these details about these adverse drug reactions.”
That makes sense. Hospitals would need specific full-time staff just to file these reports.
But that said, anyone can file it. Ordinary people, too.
Underreporting is nothing new, but if you do have an adverse reaction, report it yourself to add to the data pool.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mr. Young’s advocacy as a private citizen and MP helped create the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, or Vanessa’s Law, passed in 2014.
Spokesperson Lisa Cipriano said the Scarborough Health Network, which reported 37 incidents during the three-year period across eight sites, including three major urban hospitals, was also meeting its obligations.
He said UHN’s comparatively low numbers can be attributed to the network moving from a paper-based system that was less streamlined, the pressures of the pandemic, and the hospital’s interpretation of the law.
Anne Génier, senior media relations adviser at Health Canada, said in an e-mailed statement that, according to the law, hospitals must report all serious adverse drug reactions, including known effects and those that are unexpected.
However, after the implementation of the law, the department expected that hospitals would need time and resources to ramp up reporting, adding in an e-mailed statement that the pandemic could have played a role.
The two institutions with the most reports, CHU de Québec–Laval University and Vancouver General Hospital, have created more user-friendly systems separate from Health Canada’s mechanism to provide this data to the regulator.
The original article contains 1,976 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Sounds about right.
That makes sense. Hospitals would need specific full-time staff just to file these reports.
But that said, anyone can file it. Ordinary people, too.
Underreporting is nothing new, but if you do have an adverse reaction, report it yourself to add to the data pool.