Premier David Eby is pledging to reform the rare drug approval system his government spent months defending as it denied life-extending medication to a dying 10-year-old girl.

The premier made the comments Monday, less than two weeks after restoring drug coverage to Charleigh Pollock, the Langford girl who has a terminal brain disorder called Batten disease.

At least 10 physicians have since resigned from the province’s Expensive Drugs for Rare Diseases committee, accusing the government of political interference in overriding their recommendation to cancel Charleigh’s coverage.

“There's no question in terms of the Charleigh case that the public was not served by the current structure that we have,” Eby said Monday.

“The current structure of a committee that doesn't speak to the media, doesn't speak to the public, makes decisions behind closed doors, only speaks to the treating physician, and even then only through the Ministry of Health, [which] resulted in a scenario where it appeared as though what was happening was the exact opposite of what anybody wants—which is … politicians making decisions about access to medicines.”

The BC NDP government has been rocked by Charleigh’s case for the past five months, ever since the government’s Expensive Drugs for Rare Disease committee—whose members are not publicly disclosed and who do not issue any public reports—said Charleigh’s disease had progressed to the point that the drug in question, Brineura, no longer provided a clinical benefit.

The recommendation went against the appeals of Charleigh’s physician, care team,........

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