For-profit surgical clinic's legal maneuvering an insult to BC patients

BC Nurses' Union says continuing trial delays mean that for-profit medical and surgical clinics will continue to flout the law and charge patients thousands in illegal fees

BC patients will continue to be frustrated as a result of a BC Supreme Court decision today that granted an adjournment of nearly six months in the Charter trial being waged by the Vancouver-based for-profit Cambie Surgeries Corporation (CSC). The trial, scheduled to begin September 8, has been moved to March 2, 2015.

CSC legal counsel said that it wished to delay trial proceedings in order to allow for settlement discussions with the provincial government.

Legal counsel acting on behalf of patients who were required to pay illegal fees to access necessary physician care said that further trial delays mean that justice will yet again be delayed, and that all British Columbians deserve to know not only how, but if they will be protected from illegal billing.

The BCNU-supported patients are interveners in the case, and were set to bring important affidavit evidence attesting to their negative experiences with for-profit health care in BC.

"Dr. Brian Day is making a mockery of the justice system," says BCNU Vice President Christine Sorensen, who notes that the CSC owner has fully admitted to breaking the law and has been litigating since 2008 in order to prevent the province from enforcing the BC Medicare Protection Act in the interest of all British Columbians.

"Day used the courts to delay a government audit of his clinic for three years - and when the audit was finally conducted in 2012, it showed that CSC illegally billed patients almost half a million dollars over a thirty day period alone."

Sorensen says the BC Medicare Protection Act, which ensures patients do not pay for medically necessary health care, is not being enforced against CSC and other private clinics pending the outcome of the current trial. "This latest maneuver is an insult to BC patients - and while this trial drags on it will be 'business as usual' at for-profit surgical clinics in the province, as Day and others continue to flout our public health care laws and take advantage of vulnerable patients."

For more information, please contact:

Christine Sorensen, BCNU Vice President 250-819-6293
Lew MacDonald, BCNU Communications 604-209-5375