Day in Court
CHAMPIONS OF MEDICARE Patient-intervenor Mariel Schooff meets with BCNU President Christine Sorensen on May 17. BCNU is playing a critical role supporting the legal counsel for Schooff and other intervenors in the ongoing BC Supreme Court trial on the future of health care.
When Mariel Schooff took the stand in court this May, she had no idea it would take more than 10 years of waiting before she would get the chance to tell her story to a judge.
Schooff is one of several BCNU-supported patient intervenors in the ongoing BC Supreme Court trial on the future of health care. The Port Coquitlam native now lives in Chatham, Ontario to be close to her daughter and retired husband's family. She returned to BC to testify.
During her testimony, Schooff spoke about the financial burden she and her family incurred after being referred for treatment at a for-profit surgical facility.
Schooff has suffered from chronic sinus infections most of her life, and had two prior sinus surgeries that failed to resolve her symptoms. In 2002, she was referred to a surgeon who specialized in endoscopic sinus surgery for a potential third surgery.
She was told by the surgeon that the wait for the endoscopic surgery she would require could be five-years long. But a devastated Schooff was given another option. The specialist surgeon she was referred to also worked at Vancouver's for-profit False Creek Surgical Centre, which had recently purchased the equipment needed for the surgery, and she would be able to have the procedure there – for a price: $6,125.75.
It wasn't an easy choice, but Schooff and her husband went to her bank, borrowed against the equity in their house, and got a line of credit to pay for her surgery.
The operation was successful, but the experience compelled Schooff to write a letter to the Vancouver Sun in 2003 about her situation, and how she felt about the fact that patients were being forced to pay for medically necessary services that are covered by the province's public health insurance plan.
She continues to be motivated to speak out on behalf of others. "There were a lot of people who phoned me [after writing the letter] and I felt very strongly that I could speak out for them – those who don't have means to pay."
"Everything kept getting postponed. I wondered if it was ever going to happen."
Schooff filed written affidavits with the court in 2008 and 2014. Back in Vancouver, she was grateful for the opportunity to finally testify at the trial. "Everything kept getting postponed. I wondered if it was ever going to happen," she confesses. Her testimony comes after years of delays and legal manoeuvring on the part of the plaintiffs in the trial, led by Vancouver's for-profit Cambie Surgery Centre. The plaintiffs concluded their evidence in April.
The case, which has turned into a protracted legal battle over the constitutionality of Canada's public health-care laws, revolves around the practice of extra-billing, where a doctor or private clinic charges a publicly-insured patient additional fees for medically necessary services.
Cambie owner, Dr. Brian Day, has fully admitted to breaking provisions of the BC Medicare Protection Act and has been litigating for more than 10 years to prevent the province from enforcing the law in the interest of all British Columbians.
Day has become the standard bearer of for-profit health care, and is aiming to have the laws that make up BC's single-payer health insurance system – commonly known as medicare – struck down. If he succeeds, all Canadians could see themselves paying for expensive private insurance for access to hospital and physician services.
Schooff doesn't buy Day's argument that for-profit facilities like his help to reduce surgical wait times in the public system. "He's not expanding access to health care because most people can't afford the services he offers," she says. "He's fooling himself by thinking he's offering more options. For-profit facilities are going to be using the same nurses [who work in the public system] and there is already a shortage."
BCNU has consistently advocated for equity in the provision of health care. In fact, it was BCNU that began ringing the bell in 2003 over for-profit clinics' unchecked and illegal billing for publicly insured services. And since 2006, the union has been providing legal support to Schooff and other patients who have suffered financially at the hands of for-profit health-care providers.
"Nurses have been very supportive, and I'm grateful they are advocating on behalf of all patients," Schooff says.
The trial is ongoing. Several groups have joined the defendant BC Government as intervenors in this case. They include the Attorney General of Canada, the group of patient intervenors supported by BCNU, the BC Health Coalition and Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
They dispute Day's claim that allowing British Columbians to privately pay for medically necessary services at for-profit clinics would reduce surgical wait times in the public system. Universal public health care that provides care based upon need and not ability to pay – medicare – is the safest, most efficient and most cost-effective way to provide care for all.
Lawyers representing the BCNU-supported patient intervenors have warned that the case could determine the fate of Canada's public health care system, and argued that the plaintiffs' true goal is access to more patients who are insured under a US-style private health insurance model – allowing doctors to earn more money than those who only work in the public system.
At the trial's current pace, the court is not expected to make a ruling until next spring at the earliest. Meanwhile, Cambie Surgery Corporation has successfully sought a court injunction that prevents the province from auditing for-profit surgical facilities while the case is before the courts, and as the litigation drags on, it's "business as usual" as Cambie and others continue to flout public health-care laws and take advantage of vulnerable patients.
Regardless of the outcome of this case, it will likely be appealed at the BC Court of Appeal and may ultimately end up at the Supreme Court of Canada. •
UPDATE (July-Aug 2019)