Can the government stop you from buying lifesaving medical treatment? The answer is “yes,” according to the September 10th Cambie decision of the BC Supreme Court, so long as the government also provides you with a spot on the waiting list within the public system..The decision is the culmination of years of costly litigation and court appearances—194 days of trial, 590 exhibits, 75 witnesses and 40 expert reports—and it was the first real opportunity for a Canadian court to vindicate the Charter rights of BC residents, like the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) did in Quebec in 2005. But the opportunity was squandered. And in so doing, the court demonstrated greater fidelity to preserving the status quo than to the health and lives of BC patients. You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, I guess. .At the heart of the trial were the stories of four individual plaintiffs whose experiences represent those of many other BC residents. .In 2004, eight-year-old Walid Khalfallah was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition. His family trusted that BC’s health care system would provide the medically necessary treatment Walid needed in a timely fashion. But after waiting for more than two years while his health continued to deteriorate, Walid’s family felt forced to seek the necessary medical care outside of BC. Sadly, treatment came too late for Walid and he was rendered permanently paralyzed. .Then there’s Mandy Martens. In 2011, after visiting her doctor with an urgent health concern, this mother of two, was told she’d have to wait seven months before she could get a colonoscopy. Unsatisfied, she sought medical attention outside the public health care system only to discover that she had stage four cancer. If Mandy had waited on the government’s rationed health care waiting list, it is likely that she would have died..But not everyone in BC is forced to languish on waiting lists. Federal prisoners, RCMP officers, members of the armed forces, and workers injured on the job are each exempt, allowing them to receive timely medical care. For example, the court heard of a physical education teacher who injured one of his knees on the school playground while working and the other while skiing on a weekend. He was only able to have the knee injured on the playground repaired in a timely fashion while he was forced to wait considerably longer for surgery on his other knee..It’s not controversial that waiting lists result in suffering, debilitating injuries and fatalities, and compelled the SCC to say “access to a wait list is not access to health care” in its 2005 Chaoulli decision that struck down Quebec’s ban on private insurance. The same problem exists in BC, and elsewhere in Canada..Over the years, the cost of maintaining BC’s health care system has surpassed the government’s funding capacity and the only solutions available are to sharply reduce the availability of public services, increase taxation, allow for extra billing, or set lower standards of care for those within the public health care system..These aren’t desirable options for any government seeking re-election, so BC instead quietly rations the health care services by controlling the availability of operating rooms and hospital beds. As an OECD health care assessment put it, the solution to budgetary pressures created by rising costs in a system like BC’s “has been to ration [health care] by means of long waits for treatment.” .This problem is entirely of the province’s own making. BC law prohibits doctors enrolled in the public system from working in BC’s legal private system while simultaneously prohibiting BC residents from accessing private insurance for medical treatment that the government chooses to provide. As a result of rationing and prohibitions, the demand for medically necessary healthcare services outstrips province’s capacity, and many BC residents are consigned to waiting lists unable to receive treatment before suffering irreparable harm and risking death..An appeal to the SCC is almost certainly forthcoming before all of this is over and done with. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, either the courts or politicians—who could very easily solve this problem—will finally legalize health care..Derek James-From is a freelance columnist
Can the government stop you from buying lifesaving medical treatment? The answer is “yes,” according to the September 10th Cambie decision of the BC Supreme Court, so long as the government also provides you with a spot on the waiting list within the public system..The decision is the culmination of years of costly litigation and court appearances—194 days of trial, 590 exhibits, 75 witnesses and 40 expert reports—and it was the first real opportunity for a Canadian court to vindicate the Charter rights of BC residents, like the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) did in Quebec in 2005. But the opportunity was squandered. And in so doing, the court demonstrated greater fidelity to preserving the status quo than to the health and lives of BC patients. You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, I guess. .At the heart of the trial were the stories of four individual plaintiffs whose experiences represent those of many other BC residents. .In 2004, eight-year-old Walid Khalfallah was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition. His family trusted that BC’s health care system would provide the medically necessary treatment Walid needed in a timely fashion. But after waiting for more than two years while his health continued to deteriorate, Walid’s family felt forced to seek the necessary medical care outside of BC. Sadly, treatment came too late for Walid and he was rendered permanently paralyzed. .Then there’s Mandy Martens. In 2011, after visiting her doctor with an urgent health concern, this mother of two, was told she’d have to wait seven months before she could get a colonoscopy. Unsatisfied, she sought medical attention outside the public health care system only to discover that she had stage four cancer. If Mandy had waited on the government’s rationed health care waiting list, it is likely that she would have died..But not everyone in BC is forced to languish on waiting lists. Federal prisoners, RCMP officers, members of the armed forces, and workers injured on the job are each exempt, allowing them to receive timely medical care. For example, the court heard of a physical education teacher who injured one of his knees on the school playground while working and the other while skiing on a weekend. He was only able to have the knee injured on the playground repaired in a timely fashion while he was forced to wait considerably longer for surgery on his other knee..It’s not controversial that waiting lists result in suffering, debilitating injuries and fatalities, and compelled the SCC to say “access to a wait list is not access to health care” in its 2005 Chaoulli decision that struck down Quebec’s ban on private insurance. The same problem exists in BC, and elsewhere in Canada..Over the years, the cost of maintaining BC’s health care system has surpassed the government’s funding capacity and the only solutions available are to sharply reduce the availability of public services, increase taxation, allow for extra billing, or set lower standards of care for those within the public health care system..These aren’t desirable options for any government seeking re-election, so BC instead quietly rations the health care services by controlling the availability of operating rooms and hospital beds. As an OECD health care assessment put it, the solution to budgetary pressures created by rising costs in a system like BC’s “has been to ration [health care] by means of long waits for treatment.” .This problem is entirely of the province’s own making. BC law prohibits doctors enrolled in the public system from working in BC’s legal private system while simultaneously prohibiting BC residents from accessing private insurance for medical treatment that the government chooses to provide. As a result of rationing and prohibitions, the demand for medically necessary healthcare services outstrips province’s capacity, and many BC residents are consigned to waiting lists unable to receive treatment before suffering irreparable harm and risking death..An appeal to the SCC is almost certainly forthcoming before all of this is over and done with. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, either the courts or politicians—who could very easily solve this problem—will finally legalize health care..Derek James-From is a freelance columnist
