End of conversation

As a followup to yesterday's post on the False Creek Medical Centre, the Vancouver Sun reports that not only is the B.C. Lib government not apparently looking to take any action to deal with the new private emergency room, but it's instead taking the clinic's side in arguing against any federal action under the Canada Health Act:

Health Minister George Abbott said he doubts a private urgent care centre which reopened in Vancouver Monday will invite fines to the province by the federal government because a similar facility in Quebec has not garnered any such negative notice.

Abbott said in an interview he will contact Health Canada today to alert officials to the reopening of the Urgent Care Centre at False Creek Surgical Centre.

However, he said he doubts the federal government will regard it as breaching Canada Health Act statutes because such private centres exist unfettered in Quebec. In that province, doctors who work in such facilities are not enrolled in the publicly funded Medical Services Plan because they have opted out...

In his own press conference outside the private centre, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said the Canada Health Act clearly prohibits paying privately for medically necessary care and even if the urgent care centre has found a loophole in provincial statutes, the federal government could still levy a fine against B.C.

"If they respect the law, they have to take steps here; it's not a choice, it's an obligation," Dix said, referring to federal authorities.

It's likely worth pointing out what may be a violation of the Canada Health Act, even if the current Con regime is one which has absolutely no interest in enforcing federal law.

But it's surprising that the debate has shifted there so quickly when just last fall, the Campbell government was supposedly willing to make sure that the same clinic couldn't undermine public health care by operating on a patient-pay basis. It's the Libs who are doing nothing to close an unnecessary loophole which is being used to allow for corporatized health care. And they'll bear the ultimate blame if their negligence (or outright hostility toward a single-payer system) makes the province's "conversation" on health care moot.

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