SASKATOON -- Filling her first prescriptions of 2021 a Saskatoon senior learned the hard way she wasn’t covered under the province’s senior discount drug plan.

“It’s $400 for the one prescription and with the rest it’s close to $700 full price,” said Dorothy Gamble, a 77-year-old woman who relies on a handful of prescriptions for her health.

Under the provincial plan each prescription is $25.

Gamble said she received a letter from the Ministry of Health in October, saying the ministry could not access her 2019 income tax return and she needed to file and send the ministry the forms to be eligible for the drug plan.

“We were late with our taxes because of COVID-19 and they cut me off and not my husband,” she said. “We live together, we file our taxes together and he’s okay but not me.”

Gamble said she mailed out the required documents in November and thought it was done. But when she went to fill her prescriptions on Jan. 22, she learned she would have to pay full price.

Gamble’s daughter Yvette has been helping her parents enrol back under the provincial drug plan, but she said the government should be more proactive in letting people, especially seniors, know whether they are covered.

“My concern is that they weren’t notified, that it didn’t go through, and there’s other seniors out there that may not have access to the internet or the website where the information is,” Yvette Gamble said.

Now with the appropriate documents mailed to Regina, Gamble hopes to have coverage restored before she’s due for a prescription refill.

“This morning they said as soon as I get the information sent, they will process it and get it reinstated,” she said.