Dr. Brian Day predicted the health care mess we're in today

Globe and Mail

a day ago

Last month, it was revealed that between 2018 and 2024, almost 142,000 people walked out of an emergency room in British Columbia without being seen by a doctor or a nurse.
The numbers make up just some of the data tracked by the province's health ministry. The information was obtained by the BC Conservative Party via a freedom-of-information request because heavens knows these are not the kind of statistics a sitting government wants out there – especially a government that has fought hard to maintain the status quo when it comes to health care in the province.
'It's just really sad that this is what passes for a quality health care system,' Dr. Brian Day says to me over the phone. 'The numbers are shocking, and yet we've seen this coming for years now.'
Certainly he has. I've been chronicling Dr. Day's fight against the health care system as we know it for years. And I can say, unequivocally, that he forecast the sorry state of affairs we are living today, with long waits for important surgeries becoming a part of daily life for far too many Canadians. Dr. Day predicted emergency rooms would not have the capacity to meet the growing number of people in Metro Vancouver unless the government went on a major hiring spree. Successive administrations didn't listen, and here we are today.
In rural B.C., frequent ER closings show how 'fragile' the health care system has become
B.C. health authority cuts dozens of jobs after quiet government directive to balance budget
There are few doctors in this country who have been as high-profile and controversial as Dr. Day has been for three decades. He has been the tireless pitchman for a hybrid system of health care that allows for some private providers, like the clinic he's operated in Vancouver for three decades. The journey he's been on has now been chronicled in his new autobiography: My Fight For Canadian Healthcare: A Thirty-Year Battle To Put Patients First. It is a meticulous piece of work with more than 500 references to data and research he says grounds his position in the facts. I would urge all defenders of the great system we have today to spend some time exploring its pages. It's impossible to not come away flummoxed and angry at the gross hypocrisy of those who continue to support a system that perennially underperforms against our peer nations – despite, in many cases, spending far more money.
The book walks the reader through Dr. Day's long fight with the B.C. government to allow private health insurance in the province. The struggle, of course, ultimately led to a defeat in B.C. Supreme Court in 2020, with the judge in the case rejecting Dr. Day's argument that British Columbians had a constitutional right to access private care when wait times in the public system put a person's health and life at risk. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal.
This would be the same court that in 2005 ruled that private insurance could be allowed in Quebec because, in the words of then-chief justice Beverley McLachlin, 'access to a waiting list is not access to health care.' So private health care is allowed in Quebec, just not anywhere else in Canada. Make that make sense.
The ruling against Mr. Day's clinic only applied to B.C. and its residents. So, people in Alberta, for instance, who are tired of waiting for knee or hip surgery there, can come to Dr. Day's clinic and pay to get help. (And they do.) Just as British Columbians tired of being in pain here can go to a private clinic in Alberta and get operated on. (As they do as well.)
'Many Canadians don't realize it, but we're the only country on the planet where most people are prevented from getting private health insurance,' Dr. Day told me.
But Ottawa does allow people to have private insurance for things like drug prescriptions. So, again, no private insurance allowed to get diagnosed with a health problem, but it's okay to have it for the drugs needed to remedy your issue. Again, if you can make that make sense, good for you.
Dr. Day is 78 years old now and still performing surgeries. He is as animated as ever on the topic of Canadian health care, especially on social media, where he showcases the absolute insanity of the system we live under in his many posts. As he points out in his book, there is nothing like it in the world.
'I think I'm being proven right in terms of the warnings I sounded years ago,' Dr. Day said. 'I do believe that some day people will come to their senses and realize a hybrid model where some private health care is allowed makes sense – which is why all the best health care systems have it.'