A private Vancouver health-care clinic will use out-of-province doctors
Physicians not registered with MSP to start work today at a private Vancouver health-care clinic.
A private Vancouver health-care clinic that ran afoul of the law when it opened in December will start treating patients today who are prepared to pay for services otherwise covered by the provincial Medical Services Plan.
The Urgent Care Centre at False Creek Surgical Centre will use out-of-province doctors who have never been enrolled in the MSP.
Doctors in private practice who are not enrolled in the MSP have been allowed to charge fees for their services for decades.
“Our objective was to find a way to provide a much-needed service to B.C. residents, but we also wanted to ensure that what we were doing was permitted under existing regulations, and that’s what we’ve done,” Dr. Mark Godley, medical director of the False Creek Surgical Centre, said in a news release.
“We know there is a strong demand for our urgent-care service and we believe B.C. residents should have the right to choose where they want to be treated in an emergency.”
Health Minister George Abbott, noting that doctors not enrolled in the MSP may charge for their services, said the provincial government will monitor the centre to ensure it operates under those provisions.
“If it is going to operate as they claim . . . it would appear we would have no basis for any legal action against the clinic,” Abbott said.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a long lineup of British Columbians . . . who will be looking to shell out 300 bucks to get this service.
“I think the impact of this proposition will be minimal, if any, on the public system.
“We got some sense of the market interest in services outside the public system when this centre briefly operated back in December, when we had this controversy previously.”
Abbott predicted the controversy would blow over.
“This is not an emergency room. There will not be ambulances lining up outside the Urgent Care Centre,” he said. “This is an enhanced walk-in clinic.”
He said the three doctors hired by the clinic come from Alberta and Manitoba.
“We are advised the three physicians in question have never worked in the public system in B.C.,” said Abbott.
NDP heath critic Adrian Dix said False Creek may have found a loophole that allows it to operate under the provincial statute, but charging patients for medically necessary procedures still violates the Canada Health Act.
“Really, what False Creek is attempting to do is a loophole [to] force the taxpayers of British Columbia to pay the freight for their violation of the law,” Dix said.
“It’s pretty clear that whatever effort is being made to escape the Medicare Protection Act, there’s nothing here that allows the province of B.C. to escape penalties under the Canada Health Act.”
Dix said the health minister should take steps to nip False Creek’s plan in the bud.
“What we’re talking about is increasing the cost of health care, undermining the public health-care system and subjecting the province to fines,” he said.
“You bet the province should take some steps to make sure this doesn’t happen.”
Dix said the clinic is “just playing around with a government that doesn’t want to defend public health care.”
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Do we need a private health care? You bet when you or your loved ones will be sick.
A person’s constitutional right to choose trumps the Canadian ideal of free health care, the owner of a controversial private urgent care clinic said Monday as the centre reopened its doors to Vancouver’s walking wounded.
The False Creek Urgent Care centre initially opened in December on the premise of providing emergency care to people willing to pay upfront for immediate service.
But the clinic was forced to serve only non-B.C. residents and patients using Workers Compensation after the province threatened to shut it down for breaking the law.
The Medicare Protection Act, which governs the provision of health care in B.C., prohibits doctors or clinics from charging patients for medically necessary services.
But Dr. Mark Godley, who owns the urgent care clinic, said the clinic has now hired doctors from outside the province who aren’t covered by the act, therefore allowing them to charge for services.
All the clinic’s doctors will be licensed by the B.C. Medical Association.
“From our perspective, we are within the regulations of the province. We believe we are within the legal boundaries,” Godley said at a news conference Monday.
“The Constitution trumps everything and this is about a person’s personal rights to be able to gain access to timely health care and this is about providing people with choice.”
The initial fee structure for the clinic - a $199 fee for a basic evaluation and further charges for other procedures - will remain the same, Godley said.
What’s different this time is the province agrees the clinic appears to be working within the limits of the law.
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday how many emergency doctors will actually work at the clinic, nor where they are from.
Godley said he was in discussions with doctors from around the world and only one such doctor had already been hired.
Earlier media reports suggested three doctors from Alberta and Manitoba were hired by the clinic but Godley would not comment further on staffing issues.
He did say the doctors are experienced emergency room physicians practicing in places from Saudi Arabia to the Caribbean, Godley said.
If the demand was present, more doctors will be hired, Godley said.
Despite the fact the clinic is operating on a fee-for-service model, flexible payment plans will be offered and no critically-ill person will be refused service.The 10-bed facility houses the most sophisticated MRI scanner in Canada and staff are hoping to also get involved in research.
