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Copeman Clinic: Health Coalition questions Medical Services Commission’s ability to protect patients from unlawful user chargesFOI reveals that auditors failed to verify Copeman’s claims that there was no preferential treatment at its member-only primary care clinic
The BC Health Coalition is calling for an inquiry into the provincial government’s ability to ensure that patients get fair access to physician services after it was discovered the Medical Services Commission (MSC) did not perform a test of access during its 2007 audit of Vancouver’s Copeman Healthcare Centre. “The information that we received through FOI confirms our worst suspicions: the very body that is responsible for ensuring that all B.C. residents have the kind of equal access to medical care required under our health care laws, appears unwilling or unable to protect that access,” says BCHC co-chair Rachel Tutte. CLICK HERE to download the media release CLICK HERE to download the summary FOI findings CLICK HERE to download the BCHC open letter to Health Minister de Jong CLICK HERE to download the legal opinion that helped keep Copeman out of Ontario CLICK HERE to download a Copeman timeline TAKE ACTION! CLICK HERE to call on the province to demand an independent review of the Medical Services Commission's ability to stop the charging of unlawful membership fees by for-profit clinics!
Is our provincial government truly committed to defending public health care in the courts? It has a duty to do so on behalf of all British Columbians in response to the BC Supreme Court case launched by a consortium of private for-profit clinics led by the for-profit Cambie Surgery Centre run by Dr. Brian Day. The clinics are suing the government and aiming to have key provisions of our provincial health legislation declared unconstitutional so that they can sell necessary health services to patients who can afford to pay a premium to jump the queue and open up BC to US-style health insurance.
Yet, in April 2010, then Health Minister Kevin Falcon appointed Kip Woodward—a former Board member of Cambie Surgery Centre and whose family investment firm, Woodcorp Investments Ltd., remains an investor—as chair of Vancouver Coastal Health—the province’s second largest health authority. Mr. Woodward is a known advocate of privatized, for-profit health care. In fact, last fall as Chair of Providence Health Care he wrote letters to Falcon on Woodcorp letterhead outlining numerous “competition”, “revenue generating” and “cost recovery” schemes that could not possibly avoid violating Medicare’s principles of accessibility and universality and that would further advance the interests of for-profit health care investors.
We need to start asking serious questions. - Cambie Surgery, the clinic in which Woodward is invested, is the very same clinic heading the constitutional challenge to Medicare.
- Cambie Surgery and others like it stand to benefit enormously from "patient focused funding" and other schemes that the government is implementing.
- The very government that is supposed to be defending Medicare against this lawsuit is now appointing for-profit health care proponents to run our Medicare system that is supposed to work for the benefit of everyone.
We need to be certain that the government is truly committed to the principles of public health care. The appointment of Woodward and other players should raise serious concerns about this commitment. The BC Health Coalition encourages you to take action and demand that Health Services Minister Colin Hansen take a strong stand in defending provincial health legislation from the legal challenge launched by private for-profit clinic operators in B.C. - this will ensure that we have a health care system that works for all. TAKE ACTION! CLICK HERE to send a letter now!
Background Information: Read the recent BCHC News Release on the Woodward Appointment. Recent news articles about for-profit clinics: - Bring on Investigation, Defiant Private Clinic Owner Tells Province - Nov. 8, 2010. The Tyee.
- Private Health Care Still an Uphill Battle: A Step Backward in Cambie Surgeries Corporation v. British Columbia (Medical Services Commission) - Sept. 20, 2010. The Court
- B.C. government wins audit fight against Vancouver private hospital - Sept. 9, 2010. The Province
- Halt For-Profit Clinics: UBCM Resolution - Sept. 29, 2009, Tyee
- Supreme Court Showdown for Private Clinics - Sept. 7, 2009, Tyee
- BC Flubbed Probe on Private Health Clinics: Critics - February 2, 2009, Tyee
- Privatizing Health Care is not the Answer: lessons from the United States - October 8, 2008, Canadian Medical Association Journal
- Private Clinic, Public Cash - October 22, 2008, Nanaimo Daily
- Doctors Double Dipping , published in the Tyee.ca on December 10, 2007.
- Dr. Day's Double Speak - How Canada's Top MD views medicare, published in the Tyee.ca on July 23, 2007.
Other resources on private clinics:
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