B.C. university withdraws from embattled drug insurance program

A British Columbia university says it has withdrawn from an insurance cost-savings program at the centre of a past union grievance and an instructor's ongoing human rights complaint alleging it previously prevented him from accessing "life-changing" medication.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) is withdrawing from Manulife's optional DrugWatch program following "faculty concerns," it announced in an April 24 email sent to faculty and shared with CBC News. 

Launched in 2015, DrugWatch analyzes the costs and potential benefits of new medications before deciding to cover them "to help ensure value for money in a dramatically changing drug market," according to a Manulife report.

"While Manulife has assured the University that no KPU faculty member was denied access to medication after it re-entered DrugWatch, the university has listened to faculty concerns raised through the offices of the Kwantlen Faculty Association (KFA)," wrote the university's vice-president of human resources Laurie Clancy and Mark Diotte, president of the faculty association.

The university had declined to confirm whether or not it was enrolled in DrugWatch when CBC News first reported on a complaint by Mazen Guirguis, a philosophy instructor and former dean of humanities at KPU, in November.

But in a May 3 statement to CBC News, Jenn Harrington, KPU's associate vice-president of people relations, confirmed it had first enrolled in 2018 and the withdrawal took effect as of May 1. 

Last year, the KFA had called DrugWatch discriminatory, unfair and "ethically questionable."

In a 2021 arbitration decision, the B.C. Labour Relations Board found Douglas College's enrolment in DrugWatch had violated its collective agreement with instructors, and ordered the institution to opt out immediately. 

The KFA's grievance now appears to have been withdrawn, according to the statement, but Diotte did not respond to requests for comment from CBC News to confirm.

Manulife declined to comment on KPU's withdrawal, citing privacy, but said DrugWatch "plays an important role in helping members access the right medication at the right time, while ensuring the long-term sustainability of group benefits plans."

"Manulife encourages all plan sponsors to make decisions that are best for them and their employees," a spokesperson wrote in an email to CBC News on May 22.

KPU's withdrawal from DrugWatch was one of the remedies sought by Guirguis, whose September 2023 complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal claims that DrugWatch prevented him from accessing risdiplam for more than a year and then put the coverage he eventually received in peril.

Guirguis said risdiplam had helped halt deterioration due to Type 3 spinal-muscular atrophy, a severe and progressive neuromuscular disease that causes muscles to weaken.

He alleged that he was unable to apply to get the $1,000-a-day drug covered for more than a year until KPU temporarily withdrew from DrugWatch in 2022.