Allowing privatization of B.C.’s medical system contrary to what a Charter challenge by Cambie Surgeries Corporation et al contends could be a prescription for reduced medical services for poorer, sicker citizens according to two speakers at a Feb. 28 forum at the Sechelt Indian Band Hall.
About 60 people attended the meeting sponsored by the Sunshine Coast Senior Citizens (COSCO-B.C.) to hear author Colleen Fuller, and Dr. Duncan Etches of Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
Fuller who wrote Caring for Profit: how corporations are taking over Canada’s health care system, is adamantly against physicians billing patients directly and allowing doctors to extra bill for charges such as facility fees (renting operating rooms), nursing services and miscellaneous costs such as tissues.
She grew up on the Sunshine Coast, both her parents were educators and according to their daughter, “radicals.” Fuller prefaced her remarks with a personal story of being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at St. Mary’s Hospital 46 years ago. She touched on what it meant to have universal health coverage to deal with her disease including being able to access the knowledge of experts at B.C.’s largest hospitals.
Fuller argued that the reason private clinics were first allowed in B.C. — to expedite workers compensation cases — was never adequately proven to be the case. In the one study done in the past 19 years (on knee surgery wait times) Fuller said neither a shorter wait time or economical gain for the workers compensation was shown.
Fuller said that the number of for-profit clinics has increased in recent years.
“The competition among them has become quite intense. What they want is to increase their sources of income,” she said.
For his part Etches divided his presentation into three key areas: wait time, physician supply and sustainability.
Etches said wait time for patients in the public system would not go down because the privatization would drain resources, including doctors and health care professionals from the current system. The opportunity to make more money could leach health providers from the public to private sector, he said.
In addition private physicians work in specialties such as surgery in urban areas, which could result in rural areas such as Hazelton and Bella Bella, two of his former practices scrambling for general doctors.
He pointed to “cherry picking” by the private clinics as a concern for the public system. Only the healthiest patients will be able to use the clinics. Those having big risk factors or suffering from prior health issues requiring hospital stays will be precluded from the private clinics. Any complications from treatment at a private clinic would be resolved at a public facility, he pointed out.
Both he and Fuller urged those present to show their support for the B.C. government’s position in the court case. More information on Etches’ organization is available at www.canadiandoctorsformedicare.ca.
