Trial challenging medicare hears hundreds died while awaiting surgery in B.C.
Posted November 25, 2019 12:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER — The head of the British Columbia Anesthesiologists’ Society says the government has failed to meet its own targets of maximum acceptable wait times for medically necessary surgeries.
Dr. Roland Orfaly told a trial challenging the ban on extra billing in the Medicare Protection Act that 308 patients died between 2015 and 2016 in the Fraser Health Authority alone while waiting for surgery.
He told B.C. Supreme Court he did not know the causes of death in the region that is one of six health-care authorities in British Columbia.
The society, along with Canadian Doctors for Medicare, is among the interveners in the trial that began in 2016.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Day launched the lawsuit in 2009, saying he wants the ban on extra billing struck down because patients have the constitutional right to timely surgeries if they’re waiting too long in the public system.
Orfaly said in an interview that the society doesn’t have a position on whether the court should support private care, but it believes patients should have reasonable access to care in the public system.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2019.
The Canadian Press
