PRIVATE CLINICS OPERATING 24/7

Glenn Bohn Vancouver Sun
Friday, May 31, 2002

Doctors have been performing operations around the clock at a privately owned, for-profit surgery centre in Vancouver since doctors began refusing to do elective surgeries at publicly owned hospitals two weeks ago.
Dr. Mark Godley, medical director of the three-year-old False Creek Surgical Centre, says surgeons normally do 120 operations monthly there, but have done 200 this month.

"We've had the busiest week we've had," Godley said in an interview Thursday. "It's so busy we're operating day and night. People need access to surgery and surgeons need a way to operate on their patients outside the system. It's very sad it has to be this way, because patients are the pawns in this crisis."
Godley said the dispute between doctors and the B.C. government -- which ended Thursday with a tentative agreement -- is the most obvious reason for the increase in business.

"The surgeons want to book more predictable [operation] times in the private sector, as opposed to being in the public, where they don't know day to day whether their surgical slates are going to be cancelled."

About 105 physicians and surgeons have privileges at the centre, which has three operating rooms, six recovery bed and six overnight stay rooms. Its Web site advertises a discreet and private facility with no waiting lists for operations, such as general, orthopedic, neuro, reconstructive and cosmetic plastic surgeries.
Like the nearby Cambie Surgery Centre and other private centres in B.C., False Creek Surgical Centre caters to people who have third-party insurance for their operations, such as those with work-related injuries and claims at the WCB, people with ICBC claims, and members of the RCMP.

The Canada Health Act, a federal law, forbids doctors from billing patients for government-insured services.

Under the provincial Medicare Protection Act, B.C. residents are insured by medicare for visits to specialists when they have a referral from a family doctor, and are not allowed to pay doctors directly for services.

Godley said that to the best of his knowledge, his centre is complying with those laws.
"The kind of surgeries we're doing is [for] people who are able to legally get around the Canada Health Act and the Medicare Protection Act.

". . . There are options developing: insurance companies are looking for loopholes, everybody is looking for loopholes, to gain access to care."
B.C.'s largest health-care union said the B.C. government's confrontation with doctors is helping private surgery centres.

"Before the election, he [Premier Gordon Campbell] told HEU members he wanted to make private clinics redundant," said Chris Allnutt, secretary and business manager of the 46,000-member Hospital Employees' Union. "Everything he's done since being elected has gone in the opposite direction."

Unlike the False Creek Surgical Centre, the privately owned Cambie Surgery Centre reported no increase in the number of surgeries. This month, about 330 people had surgery and other medical procedures at the centre, almost the same number as May, 2001.

"We're already operating at almost-maximum capacity, so one of the things we're about to do is expand and double in size," said Dr. Brian Day, an owner of the centre.
Day criticized The Vancouver Sun for front-page stories about patients who waited months for surgeries, only to have the operation delayed by job actions by doctors.
"Why haven't you been running stories on the 70,000 people who have been waiting seven months or longer before this doctors' job action?" he asked.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., the governing body for 7,800 doctors, has said doctors have a right to withdraw services, but only if ethical and professional obligations are met.

"There's no 'college of politicians' where we can report people who have been waiting for seven months," Day said. "It's morally wrong that patients must wait that long for necessary surgery."

St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham is the only hospital in Whatcom County, the Washington state county closest to Greater Vancouver.
Judy Smith, public relations director of the Catholic-sponsored, not-for-profit hospital, said a "couple of dozen" Canadians have major surgeries there each year. She said the number of Canadians seeking operations or CT scans hasn't increased since doctors' job actions began in mid-May, although the hospital has seen a "little spike" of Canadians when health care services were disrupted in the Lower Mainland in the past.

gbohn@pacpress.southam.ca
© Copyright 2002 Vancouver Sun

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