B.C. Court of Appeal upholds ban on private healthcare clinics

The B.C. Court of Appeal’s three justices were unanimous that B.C.’s ban on doctors’ extra-billing and limits to private health insurance don’t violate the Constitution but acknowledged that people are suffering and dying from waiting too long for necessary medical care. The case was brought by Dr. Brian Day of the Cambie Surgery Centre and argued that regulated private surgical services and private health insurance could take pressure off the public system and provide an option to patients facing long waiting times. B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix applauded the judgment, vowing to vigorously defend the public system. Day has long said he expects to fight his case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. He opened the Cambie Surgery Centre in 1996, billing privately for procedures including orthopedic surgeries, screening colonoscopies and oral and plastic surgery.