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Given these inconsistencies in the case law, it is unclear to what
extent pandemic-related inaction by health care decision makers
within and outside the long-term care system, including the failure
to provide sufficient COVID-19 testing or personal protective equip-
ment, to adopt adequate containment measures, or to effectively regu-
late care and working conditions, might be subject to Charter review.46
While Chaoulli and Auton have been heavily criticized, both decisions
present significant hurdles for Charter claimants seeking positive rights
to care under s. 7, or arguing s. 15 demands more than equal access to
existing services.47 But even a narrow reading of the current jurispru-
dence leaves little doubt that decisions to move patients from hospi-
tals to long-term care, and not to transport long-term care residents to
hospitals if they fell ill with COVID-19, raise serious Charter concerns.
In terms of s. 7, these transfer decisions severely compromised
long-term care residentsâ physical and mental health, security, and
autonomy. They increased not just the risk of death, but of dying in
âhorrific conditions.â48 These decisions did not, by any measure, com-
ply with principles of fundamental justice. They were made without
âeffective participationâ by those affected;49 they undermined their
own public health objectives,50 and they caused grossly dispropor-
tionate harm.51 As one adult son described his motherâs experienceâ
after being hospitalized for a fall that left her incapable of returning
homeâof being moved to a long-term care facility where she died of
COVID-19 three weeks later: âWhen I talked to her at the hospital, she
46. In Ontario Nurses Association v Eatonville/Henley Place, 2020 ONSC 2467, nurses
working in four Ontario long-term care facilities obtained an injunction, based in
part on s. 7 of the Charter, forcing their employers to provide them with adequate
personal protective equipment; Katherine Lippel, this volume, Chapter E-3;
Vanessa Gruben & Louise BĂ©langer-Hardy, this volume, Chapter E-4.
47. See e.g. Marie-Claude PrĂ©mont, âLâaffaire Chaoulli et le systĂšme de santĂ© du
QuĂ©becâ
: cherchez lâerreur, cherchez la raisonâ (2006) 51:1 McGill LJ 167; Martha
Jackman, ââThe Last Line of Defence for [Which?] Citizensâ: Accountability,
Equality and the Right to Health in Chaoulliâ (2006) 44:2 Osgoode Hall LJ 349;
Colleen M Flood, Kent Roach & Lorne Sossin, eds, Access to Care, Access to Justice:
The Legal Debate Over Private Health Insurance in Canada (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2005); Jackman, âHealth Care and Equalityâ, supra note 41;
Natasha Bakht, âFurthering an Economic/Social Right to Healthcare: The Failure
of Auton v British Columbiaâ (2005) 4:2 JL and Equality 241; Jackman, supra note 4.
48. Brewster & Kapelos, supra note 27; Insite, supra note 45 at paras 91-93.
49. NewÂ
BrunswickÂ
(MinisterÂ
ofÂ
HealthÂ
andÂ
CommunityÂ
Services)Â
vÂ
G(J), [1999] 3 SCR 46
at paras 73, 119.
50. Insite, supra note 45 at paras 129-32.
51. Ibid at para 133.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International