October 29, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	PDF format : 15 Kb

The BC Nurses' Union faces off against the provincial government in BC Supreme Court on Tuesday October 30, in the union's on-going legal action against Victoria for failing to enforce the laws of medicare.

BCNU wants the Court to order the government to protect patients from extra billing and user fees that are being charged by private clinics and medical specialists for services covered by medicare.

The legal action is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am at the BC Supreme Court in downtown Vancouver.

The union launched the action in April 2005 and filed a revised petition with the Court in December 2006.

Legal papers include information from a Williams Lake woman who was offered a quick appointment last year for a fee of $350 at the office of a neurological specialist, as an alternative to waiting for her scheduled appointment with the same specialist in the same office in February 2008. Other affidavits are from patients who were forced to pay large facility fees for medically necessary operations at Lower Mainland private surgical clinics. In most cases the surgeon was paid for the service by the province's Medical Services Plan, while the patient was billed a facility fee by the clinic.

The BC Medicare Protection Act prohibits the provincial Medical Services Plan from paying a doctor to treat a patient if the patient is also charged additional fees for the service.

"The provincial government has been ignoring these violations while it uses public money to facilitate the expansion of private health care," says BCNU President Debra McPherson. "It's past the time they are required to stop this privatization of medicare by stealth."

The provincial government has responded to the action with legal arguments disputing the union's right to bring the matter to the Court. Those arguments and the union's response will be heard for three days beginning Tuesday.