Access to Medications

Canada is facing a widespread and growing mental health crisis. For those Canadians living with mental illness, medication can be a critical part of the healing and recovery journey (along with peer support, psychotherapy, lifestyle changes and alternative therapies).

Access to medications for mental illnesses in Canada remains one of the most persistent inequities in our health system. People living with mental illnesses (such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, insomnia, and others) continue to face substantial delays, a significantly higher rate of negative reimbursement recommendations and an inequity in publicly funded medications, despite the critical role that medications can play in recovery.

To validate those barriers, Mood Disorders Society of Canada (MDSC) commissioned the report,  System Broken: How Public Drug Coverage is Failing Canadians with Mental Illness / Système brisé : Dans quelle mesure la couverture publique des médicaments ne répond-elle pas aux besoins des Canadiens atteints de maladies mentales?, which revealed the stark reality that public access to the newest medications for mental illnesses has been hampered by a complex system that takes too long  (2.5 years for medications for mental illnesses vs 2 years for other medications), has more negative assessments (37% more negatives from reimbursement assessors) and results in inequitable access  – or in many cases, no access at all (nearly 40% of medications for mental illnesses are not publicly reimbursed in any of Canada’s four most populous provinces).

In an effort to address these systemic gaps, Mood Disorders Society of Canada held a cross-system roundtable in 2024 and established the national Access to Medications for Mental Illnesses Working Group (WG) in 2025, a first‑of‑its‑kind, multi‑stakeholder collaboration bringing together perspectives from: People with Lived/Living experience (PWLE), patient organizations, psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists/clinicians, health technology assessment (HTA) representatives, industry stakeholders, Ministry of Health and public payer representatives. The WG’s aim is to action the 2024 roundtable recommendations. Its overarching goals are to:

• Improve timely access to medications for mental illnesses
• Reduce inequity in funding access to medications for mental illnesses

In 2026, the WG released its Value Considerations Framework, which outlines endpoints that demonstrate the strongest improvements in outcomes for PWLE, and should be prioritized by decision makers. These efforts aim to build a more equitable, transparent, and patient-centred approach to medications for mental illnesses reimbursement in Canada.

We recognize the importance of amplifying the voices of those who have personally experienced the challenges of accessing medications for mental illnesses – these voices are and continue to be central to our work in this area.

How Drug Approval & Reimbursement Works in Canada

Canada’s drug system is complex, involving multiple stages and decision-makers before a medication reaches patients. To help Canadians better understand this process, Canada’s Drug Agency has developed a new educational resource that clearly outlines each step, from regulatory approval, to health technology assessment, to public reimbursement, helping to demystify how access to medications is determined.

The Access to Medications for Mental Illness program has contributed to several concrete, real-world policy changes that are improving how mental health medications are evaluated and reimbursed in Canada. These developments represent important early shifts toward a more inclusive, patient-focused reimbursement system:

To examine the barriers facing Canadians seeking access to medications for mental illnesses MDSC commissioned the report, System Broken: How Public Drug Coverage is Failing Canadians with Mental Illness / Système brisé : Dans quelle mesure la couverture publique des médicaments ne répond-elle pas aux besoins des Canadiens atteints de maladies mentales?. The report revealed persistent inequities within Canada’s drug reimbursement system. Mental health medications are 37% more likely to receive negative reimbursement recommendations than treatments for other non-oncology conditions (17% vs 54% respectively), leaving roughly 40% of these therapies without public coverage in Canada’s four most populous provinces (62% not funded in Quebec, 54% in B.C. or Alberta, 45% in Ontario). Even when reimbursement is ultimately approved, patients wait a half year longer, on average, before gaining access (2.5 years vs 2 years). All together, these findings underscore the urgent need for a more timely, equitable, and patient-centred approach to medication access.

Health System Roundtable: Having identified and confirmed the urgent need for system change to ensure timely and equitable access to life-changing medications, MDSC convened a first-of-its-kind multi-stakeholder Health System Roundtable in May 2024, “Pathways to Equity”. The roundtable brought together representatives from CDA-AMC, psychiatrists, researchers, academics, PWLE, patient organizations, industry, elected officials, and public health stakeholders to collaboratively explore solutions to the barriers limiting access to medications for mental illnesses in Canada.

Through these discussions, participants developed three key recommendations to help improve the reimbursement process and promote more equitable access to care:

These recommendations continue to guide MDSC’s efforts to advance a more timely, equitable, and patient-centred approach to access to medications for mental illnesses in Canada.

Access to Medications Working Group: To support implementation of the roundtable recommendations, MDSC convened the Access to Medications for Mental Illness Working Group, mandated to advance two priorities emerging from the Health System Roundtable, while keeping the front-line voice central to its work:

CONFERENCES

MDSC had the opportunity present its work on access to medications at various conferences since 2023: 

At the Symposium, MDSC also addressed similar topics on two separate panel presentations on September 5, 2024:

MEDIA

Mood Disorders Society of Canada launched its System Broken: How Public Drug Coverage is Failing Canadians with Mental Illness / Système brisé : Dans quelle mesure la couverture publique des médicaments ne répond-elle pas aux besoins des Canadiens atteints de maladies mentales?, report publicly in 2023 with over 52 million reads, views and listens by Canadians from 46 different pieces of media coverage. Clearly this was/is an issue that matters to Canadians! Read the media release: English, French. You can also view some of the media coverage via the links below.