Private clinics win major court victory
Injunction forces province to hold off enforcing new rules until constitutional challenge is decided
The B.C. Supreme Court has handed private clinics a major victory, ordering the NDP government to not enforce provisions of the Medicare Protection Act until their validity is established at a lengthy ongoing trial.
“Taking into account the circumstances of this constitutional litigation and a preliminary assessment of the evidence, the plaintiffs have established that injunctive relief is appropriate in this case,” Justice Janet Winteringham said Friday in a surprising decision.
The injunction will prevent the Medical Services Commission from enforcing sections of the act that came into force Oct. 1 constraining private access to necessary medical care.
Her order is good until June 1 but can be extended if the continuing two-year-old constitutional trial has not finished by then.
Winteringham concluded the injunction was necessary because the clinics said they would be forced to close and stop providing services that have been available for a quarter century, dumping hundreds of patients onto already lengthy public waiting lists.
She said some patients will suffer serious harm while waiting for health services and some physicians will not provide private-pay medically necessary health services after the MPA Amendments take effect.
She also said that some patients would have accessed private-pay medically necessary health services but for the MPA Amendments.
Dr. Brian Day, the face of the decade-long litigation, celebrated the decision, saying: “We are very pleased that the court has ruled in favour of patients.
“The justice system has, quite literally, saved many thousands of patients in B.C. from the suffering that the B.C. government would have imposed on them and their families.”
Two clinics and a handful of patients launched the constitutional challenge to the MPA’s constraints on private care nearly a decade ago and the trial before Justice John Steeves has become a marathon.
The previous Liberal government decided to hold in abeyance the impugned provisions until their constitutionality could be established.
But NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix claimed in April new punishments had to be adopted because the old provisions were ineffective and led Ottawa to withhold $16 million in health transfer payments because of “extra-billing.”
More could be withheld if the scores of private clinics and diagnostic centres continued to thumb their nose at the law, he added.
The clinics disputed that rationale and said the draconian fines and penalties for treating non-exempt individuals could force them out of business.
The justice system has saved many thousands of patients in B.C. from the suffering that the B.C. government would have imposed on them. Dr. Brian Day