For-profit Clinics

WHEREAS health care is a right in that everyone must have the right to high quality, responsive and appropriate health care which is publicly funded, publicly accountable and publicly controlled; AND WHEREAS access to health care must be equitable - regardless of an individuals income, ability, age, cultural heritage, sex sexual orientation or geographical location; AND WHEREAS the provincial government, through the Medical Services Plan of BC, insures medically required services provided by physicians in accordance with the Medicare Protection Act and the Canada Health Act; AND WHEREAS the number of private, for-profit surgical and MRICT facilities in BC has more than doubled in the past five years; AND WHEREAS a growing number of for-profit facilities are operating in breach of the Canada Health Acts criteria requiring universality and accessibility by charging patients privately for medically necessary and MSP insured hospital or physician services; AND WHEREAS for-profit clinics represent an increasing and serious threat to British Columbians health and the financial stability of the health care system; AND WHEREAS there is clear evidence that such clinics cost more than public facilities, increase wait times by draining scarce health human resources from the public system, and compromise patient safety: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities UBCM request that the Province of British Columbia: 1. Establish a moratorium on any further expansion of private, for-profit surgical and MRICT clinics 2. Require an end to public funding of for-profit clinics, including the contracting-out of day surgeries and the provision of health authority contracts to for-profit clinics 3. Require full accountability and transparency on the part of for-profit clinics by ensuring that they submit to all oversight and regulatory mechanisms currently applied to public facilities operating under the BC Hospitals Act 4. Expand public capacity by requiring the development of publicly funded and administered outpatient facilities; AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UBCM continue to research and monitor the threat to universal public health care posed by the operations of private, for-profit surgical and MRICT facilities in its members communities.