Canada's first private emergency room is scheduled to open next week for urgent care services, though both adminstrators and the B.C. health minister aren't entirely certain of its legal status.

The False Creek Surgical Centre, which already performs private surgery for a fee, won't be allowed to accept patients from ambulances or allow patients stay more than 24 hours when it opens next week.

Dr. Mark Godley said his new private emergency room will officially open next Friday.
(CBC)

Dr. Mark Godley, the centre's medical director, said the emergency room will operate much like those in small, publicly funded hospitals, and with similar hours: 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

"The facility is just like any small cottage hospital emergency room," he said. "It's the first time in Canada that this will be done."

Godley said he doesn't know where the centre falls under the Canada Health Act, and has said previously the clinic answers to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, operating on a legal basis under the Medical Practitioners Act.

B.C. Health Minister George Abbott said it was "difficult to see" how the centre could provide urgent care services under the provisions of the Canada Health Act. He promised the government would look into the matter.

The centre, a 6,000-square-foot facility, has three operating rooms, six recovery beds and five overnight stay rooms.

It operates six days a week, with a nurse-to-patient ratio of up to one nurse for every three patients. Its licence allows patients to stay overnight for care following surgery.

Full selection of services

There is a private medical centre operating in Montreal that provides services for minor emergencies, but Godley said his centre will offer full emergency medical, diagnostic and surgical procedures

Spokeswoman Sherry Wiebe said the service was necessary, citing a study that concluded that as many as 57 per cent of people in public emergency departments could be treated elsewhere.

"We don't see this as competition at all," Wiebe said.

Wiebe said a comprehensive examination at the centre would cost $199, though there could be additional costs as a result of the examination.

The B.C. board member with Canadian Doctors for Medicare condemned the plan.

"It's reinforcing a direction that people that have money can go to the front of the line, at the expense of people that have less money," said Dr. Margaret McGregor.

Province turning blind eye to private care: critics

Godley said the centre wrote to Abbott about its plans several months ago, but received no reply from the health minister and so decided to proceed. 

NDP health critic Adrian Dix said the provincial government is ignoring the growth of two-tier medical care in B.C.

"They have a legal and moral obligation to enforce the laws of our province, including the Medicare Protection Act," he said.

Dix called for Abbott's resignation, and said either the health minister had been negligent in allowing the centre to get close to opening, or had made a secret deal with its administrators.

Mike Old, spokesman for the Hospital Employees Union, said the news of the first private emergency room is disturbing.

"It's a really alarming development. Doesn't this government believe that every family and every child deserves equal access to health care regardless of their income?"