Seite - 353 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
Bild der Seite - 353 -
Text der Seite - 353 -
353Fault
Lines: COVID-19, the Charter, and Long-term Care
into a comprehensive, properly funded, public health care system is
long overdue.77
The tragic experience of COVID-19 in long-term care highlights
a second barrier to equal access to care for disadvantaged groups:
the absence of human rights-based accountability for health care
decision-making.78 The interdependence between human rights and
accountability is well understood internationally, and UN treaty mon-
itoring bodies have criticized Canada for failing to meet its obligations
in both areas.79 Paul Hunt explains:
Because of the complexity, sensitivity and importance of many
health policy issues, it is vitally important that effective, acces-
sible and independent mechanisms of accountability are in place
to ensure that reasonable balances are struck by way of fair pro-
cesses that take into account all relevant considerations, includ-
ing the interests of disadvantaged individuals, communities, and
populations.80
The life, security of the person, and equality rights of long-term care
residents were directly implicated in choices made by governments
and health and hospital authorities in relation to the pandemic—
most especially by COVID-19 transfer decisions. Yet no accountabil-
ity mechanisms were in place to ensure that the rights and interests
of this vulnerable group were taken into account in early pandemic
planning, or that long-term care residents or those advocating on their
behalf were included or even consulted, until the rising death count
became a national disgrace. Over and above public expressions “of
anger … sadness … frustration [and] grief,”81 federal and provincial/
territorial governments must accept and affirm that access to care is a
77. Lewis, supra note 18; Canadian Health Coalition, supra note 19.
78. See generally Martha Jackman, “The Future of Health Care Accountability: A
Human Rights Approach” (2016) 47:2 Ottawa L Rev 437; Colleen M Flood &
Sujit Choudhry, StrengtheningÂ
theÂ
Foundations:Â
ModernizingÂ
theÂ
CanadaÂ
HealthÂ
Act,Â
Discussion Paper No 13 (Saskatoon: Royal Commission on the Future of Health
Care in Canada, 2002).
79. Paul Hunt, PromotionÂ
andÂ
ProtectionÂ
ofÂ
AllÂ
HumanÂ
Rights,Â
Civil,Â
Political,Â
Economic,Â
Social and Cultural Rights: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right of EveryoneÂ
to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health,
UNHRC, 7th Sess, Un Doc A/HRC/7/11 (2008) at paras 51, 65; Porter, supra
note 37.
80. Hunt, supra note 79 at para 64.
81. Brewster & Kapelos, supra note 27.
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