The Insite Decision

HARM REDUCTION GOOD, BUT PRIVATE CARE BAD?

While the Supreme Court sanctions Insite, in Ontario, a for-profit
clinic for newborn babies comes under fire

Thanks to Friday's Supreme Court decision, Vancouver's Insite safe
injection site is now legal. That's a fascinating development in
light of regulators' hostility to a comparatively benign, but no less
innovative, health-care facility, this one located in Whitby, Ont.

The establishment, the Mom and Baby Care Depot, was founded by
pediatrician Dr. Karen Dockrill. OHIP pays just $32 to a doctor for a
newborn assessment - which translates into doctor face-time of
perhaps 10 minutes. To improve that, Dr. Dockrill created a program
that charged $1,500 annually for a host of baby-related services,
including two-hour appointments with Dr. Dockrill and her staff. The
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (effectively a proxy of
the McGuinty Liberals in the fight against private care) rewarded Dr.
Dockrill's creativity by charging her with dishonourable conduct. She
faces a disciplinary hearing next spring.

Here's the thing: The Insite decision hinged on Section 7 of Canada's
Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the one that guarantees an
individual's "right to life, liberty and security of the person." But
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin's decision goes further than that.
It's based on a "right to health" - one the federal government would
have violated by shutting down Insite and preventing injection drug
users from accessing the health services offered.

If this right to health allows Canadian junkies to shoot their drugs
under medical supervision, doesn't the same right to health allow
Canadian parents to raise their kids under medical supervision? And
if the public system can't guarantee that right, don't those parents
have the right to ensure the health of their babies by paying a little extra?

There is no question that the Mom and Baby Depot improved newborn
health. According to statistics provided by Dr. Dockrill, 90% of
infants in the general population visit an emergency room before they
reach six weeks of age. Of the parents who enrolled in Dr. Dockrill's
program, only 2% went to the ER by six weeks. Only 11% of all
five-month-old babies in Mom and Baby Depot's Durham region are
exclusively breast-fed, which promotes long-term health by decreasing
things like infections. Meanwhile, the proportion of babies
exclusively breastfed in Dr. Dockrill's practice was 70%.

Back in 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada cited a similar right to
health in the Chaoulli decision, a Quebec case where an individual
wanted to purchase a hip replacement that the province couldn't
provide him with in a reasonable time period. This ruling opened the
way for Quebecers to purchase private health insurance in the face of
long wait times. Now the Court is criticizing government's attempts
to shut down Insite because it created marked health benefits for its
community of users "with no discernable negative impact on the public
safety and health objectives of Canada."

Couldn't something similar be said about the Mom and Baby Depot? In
the Insite affair, the Court has once again signalled the strength of
an individual right to adequate health care. Our governments should
follow the Court's leadership by getting out of innovation's way.