When 43-year-old Sophie Djeme-Mi Koumazock was told her incurable metastatic breast cancer was no longer responding to her medication, she was reassured knowing she had another option.

Her doctor said her profile made her a candidate for the drug Truqab. While it wouldn’t cure her, it would give the Quebec City mother of four young kids more time with her family.

But her hope didn’t last long.

Costing up to $12,000 a month — double her previous medication that had been covered by her insurer Canada Life — Djeme-Mi Koumazock was shocked to learn she wouldn’t be reimbursed for the new treatment.

“It’s destroyed me. I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

While Quebec’s health insurance board covers Truqap under exceptional circumstances, federal public servant Djeme-Mi Koumazock is enrolled in the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP). Administered by Canada Life, the federal plan does not cover the drug.

Djeme-Mi Koumazock contacted her employer and union. While her union is helping her with her case, she’s been told the decision is policy. She’s now forced to pay out of pocket until she finds a solution.

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This is why universal healthcare has to include pharmacare.

We’ll figure out what’s wrong with you for free, but if your insurance doesn’t cover the medication you need then fuck you?

People here love to talk about how people in the States die or are crushed by medical debt due to the cost of healthcare. But the same can and does happen here due to the cost of medications.

Just because it’s less common here doesn’t make it any less wrong. Pharmacare is healthcare.