• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Company Plans Private Health Care for Ont. This Summer, Across Canada By 2007

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 18:00 CST

By MIKE OLIVEIRA

TORONTO (CP) - A private health-care company announced Wednesday that it plans to move into Ontario this summer and every major Canadian city by 2007, but Ontario's health minister threatened heavy fines if the company contravenes legislation.

The announcement by Copeman Healthcare raised immediate criticism from observers who warned such moves would erode the public system by redirecting resources and expertise to wealthier patients.

Copeman Healthcare said new clinics would open this summer in Toronto, Ottawa and London, Ont., while clinics could open in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Victoria within a couple years.

For a $1,200 enrolment fee and $2,300 a year, Copeman Healthcare would offer access to a general practitioner plus specialists in the fields of cardiology, urology, orthopedics, neurology, oncology, gynecology, sports injury and pain management.

"It's time for action not further debate," said founder and president Don Copeman, who opened the company's first private clinic in Vancouver last fall.

"We have very real solutions that can help Canada avert a crisis in primary care, and we believe that solving the problems in primary care is the key to the overall sustainability of our health-care system."

While Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman did not say he would stop the company from opening the clinics, he said he wasn't endorsing the plan and needs to know more before he'd do so.

He's said he's particularly concerned about the initiation fee, which seemed to contravene provincial legislation.

"You can't have an access fee that a patient has to pay before they can receive service," Smitherman said. "That is exactly the kind of fee that seems to be a barrier to equitable access."

He said the provincial Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act has penalties of up to $25,000 per offence if the company were to break the law.

But Copeman insisted the company is acting within the guidelines of the Canada Health Act and provincial legislation, and suggested the private clinics would actually benefit the broader population.

He said the clinics would save governments money by lessening the burden on the public system and keeping its clients healthier. Those healthier people would stave off demand for costly public treatments down the road, Copeman said.

Each of the Ontario clinics would have eight physicians and accept no more than 4,000 patients to limit wait times.

Minister of Health Promotion Jim Watson said health care should be based on how sick a patient is and not how rich they are.

"I'm certainly concerned when I hear some people. . .saying, 'If it's a couple extra thousand dollars, I don't mind paying that.' Well, there are a lot of people that don't have a couple thousand dollars to pay for health care and that's why we fight hard to preserve our public health-care system," Watson said.

Others feared that the private clinics would divert resources and lure doctors away from the public system.

NDP health critic Michael Prue said allowing the plan to go ahead would be a broken promise by Premier Dalton McGuinty, who campaigned on ending the creeping privatization of health care.

"Dalton McGuinty is letting down ordinary families," Prue said. "Instead of guaranteeing all Ontarians access to public medicare, he is standing by doing nothing while private, for-profit firms Americanize our health-care system."

Prof. Brian Golden of the University of Toronto said the rollout of private clinics was a move every provincial government should have seen coming.

"Particularly because they seem to be doing OK in Vancouver - and by that I mean no one's locked their doors yet - there is apparently an appetite among consumers (for private clinics), at least their entrepreneurs think so," Golden said.

"There will always be some relatively affluent people who are willing to pay more to jump the queue."

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category