On Sept. 10, almost four years to the day a controversial court case – launched by physician Brian Day – started in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, a judge dismissed the constitutional challenge that Day and other supporters of for-profit health care argued violated the constitutional rights of patients. Day, founder of a private surgical facility in Vancouver  said sections of the BC Medicare Protection Act prevented him from helping patients willing to pay for surgical procedures in the private system if wait times were longer in the public system. He wanted to strike down three provisions in the act: a ban on extra billing; the prohibition on selling private insurance for medically necessary care; and a prohibition on doctors working simultaneously in the public and private systems.

This case started in 2009, but didn’t get to the B.C. Supreme Court until 2016. RNAO issued a statement in 2016, noting it was “an attack on our country's health system, pure and simple. Brian Day believes…that the system exists for him and others to profit from it. Nurses are proud to work in a system that believes universal and equitable access to care is a human right. The path to improving our health system is not through compromising its core values, but instead through increasing universal access. Like all two-tier systems, Day's ideas benefit only a small elite, while substantially diminishing health outcomes for the rest of us.”

In his September ruling, Justice John Steeves rejected the argument that the rights of patients and physicians were violated by limits on access to privately paid surgical services, citing the act is focused on medically necessary services, not the ability to pay for such services.   

RNAO applauds the historic September ruling (available in full HERE) for its support of universal health care as “part of our national identity,” CEO Doris Grinspun said.