Public health care supporters call for investigation of Copeman Healthcare Centre

Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq's recent announcement of her department's investigation into the controversial Sentinelle Health Group in Ottawa has prompted public health care supporters in BC and Alberta to call for a similar review of the Copeman Healthcare Centre.

"We would like to take this occasion to request that your department also investigate the practices of the Copeman Healthcare Centre which operates on a similar business model as Sentinelle Health Group," said BC Health Coalition co-chair Rachel Tutte in a letter sent to Aglukkaq today.

The BC Health Coalition and Alberta Friends of Medicare have been following business practices at Copeman clinics in Vancouver and Calgary. Both groups saw the immediate similarities between Copeman and Ottawa's Sentinelle, which recently began courting MPs as potential patients. The move now has Health Canada questioning whether Sentinelle's membership fees violate the Canada Health Act.

"This is an issue of access to insured medical services on the basis of need," said Alberta Friends of Medicare executive director David Eggen.

"Health Canada needs to work with our provincial health ministries to determine whether the practice of charging access fees for membership in a primary care clinic violates the Canada Health Act's principle of accessibility on uniform terms and conditions," said Eggen, noting that Copeman charges an up-front access fee of $3,900.00 and ongoing access fees of $2,900.00 per year that allow for preferred access to specialist medical practitioners working there.

The BC Health Coalition and Alberta Friends of Medicare will continue to raise concerns about the dangers of member-only, private-pay medical centres and promote public solutions to our health care challenges.

"Government needs to promote public community health clinics with multi-disciplinary primary health care teams that will result in lower costs to the system and better health outcomes," said Tutte.

"Member-only clinics harm public health care by taking health care professionals like doctors and nurses away from the public sector to work in for-profit clinics accessible only to those who can afford the high fees."

View the BCHC letter to Minster Aglukkaq: http://tiny.cc/5qx11