Dr. Trevor Theman, registrar with the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons, said Wednesday he was upset by inquiry testimony that clients of Helios Wellness Centre — who paid annual memberships of up to $10,000 each — got colonoscopies through the public system within weeks or months while other routine cases waited more than three years.
“I’m distressed that physicians might have been advancing patients solely because a patient was paying for a private service,” Theman said.
“It’s partly the Canada Health Act and it’s partly an ethical responsibility to treat people fairly and equitably and not to discriminate based on the ability to pay.”
According to three clerks who testified this week at the province’s public inquiry into preferential health services access, queue-jumping by Helios clients at the taxpayer-financed Forzani and MacPhail Colon Cancer Screening Centre was systematic.
The state-of-the-art facility opened four years ago amid claims it would slash patient waits in the public system. But a doctor referral registry from the screening centre, filed as an exhibit at the inquiry, appears to show it was dozens of Helios patients who regularly got priority testing.
The private clinic is located just two floors below the centre at the Foothills Medical Centre campus in space leased from the University of Calgary.
Annual membership at the clinic was $10,000 for an individual and $15,000 for a couple in 2009, according to information that appears on the website of the company’s graphic designer.
Company records show Helios Wellness Centres was federally incorporated in 2006 and list Dr. Chen Fong, the U of C’s former head of radiology, as the vice-chairman. The firm’s treasurer is Scott Ratushny, a Calgary oil executive. Neither returned phone calls Wednesday.
Helios Health Alberta Ltd., a provincially incorporated entity also formed that year, lists Ratushny as the sole director and Helios Partnership as its only shareholder. Last month, Alberta’s privacy commissioner listed five physicians, including Fong, as being associated with the wellness centre.
Fong, who has helped raise funds for health-care facilities and services in the Calgary area, also donated $15,000 to the ruling Progressive Conservative party during last year’s provincial election campaign.
Minutes from a U of C board of governors meeting in October 2011 show the renewal of Helios’s lease was discussed behind closed doors.
Then-chairman Doug Black and board member Dr. Kabir Jivraj declared a conflict of interest. On Wednesday, neither replied to phone messages left by a Herald reporter.
Liberal health critic David Swann said the allegations about Helios raise huge questions about the functioning of Alberta’s health system, including how the system persisted.
“Preferential access is illegal,” Swann said.
“It should be stopped.”
New Democrat Leader Brian Mason said both the federal and provincial government should move to halt what he believes is illegal expedited access to insured services.
“We need to step in,” said Mason, “ ... to prevent people from buying their way to the front of the line.”
Health Minister Fred Horne said he is very concerned by the testimony the inquiry has heard.
“Is that sort of allegation offensive? Absolutely, to me and every citizen in the province,” Horne told reporters.
While the college’s rules prohibit him from revealing details of an ongoing investigation, Theman said it was possible he would launch a probe on his own or after receiving a complaint about doctors who may have been involved in referring and treating Helios clients at a publicly funded screening centre.
He said any physicians found to have fast-tracked patients for reasons other than medical need could face discipline ranging from a reprimand to the loss of their licence.
“We regulate doctors,” Theman said.
“The investigation would be with respect to a physician or physicians, so I need to know who that is to move ahead.”
Original Article
Source: calgary herald
Author: Matt McClure
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