Nova Scotia seniors' pharmacare program grievances aired

The head of a seniors advisory body says he's pleased with a meeting representatives had with high-ranking government officials on Wednesday to air grievances about changes coming to Nova Scotia's drug plan for seniors.

Bill Berryman, chair of the Seniors' Advisory Council for Nova Scotia, called it "productive."

"The government has made a commitment to take all of the concerns that we've provided, to review them and to report back to us in a very timely manner," he said.

He said the top three issues are:

• The difference in premiums between single seniors and couples.
• Concerns seniors will be shouldering a greater cost of the program.
• The lack of proper communication surrounding the changes.

'Commitment to listen'

The changes raise the maximum annual premium from $424 to $1,200. While some of the 120,000 seniors in the pharmacare program will pay more, the province has said two-thirds won't see any change while 29,000 will pay less.

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Berryman said the province had committed to analyzing the concerns raised and was ready to consider changes to the new measures due to start in April.

But the province's top official at the meeting, the deputy minister for seniors, wouldn't go quite that far.

"I can only comment that we've made a commitment to listen to their concerns and take them very seriously, do the analysis and get back to them in a very timely way," Simon d'Entremont said.

On Tuesday, Premier Stephen McNeil took a hard line against further changes to the program.

"We don't see any need to make any of the changes at this point," he said.