In 2013, when heroin addicts participating in a clinical trial at St. Paul’s Hospital in downtown Vancouver were denied access to prescription heroin by Health Canada once they left the trial, the hospital’s operator, Providence Health Care Society, joined five patients in deciding to bring a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge, claiming the addicts’ rights to life, liberty, and security of the person were infringed upon.
Providence Health Care is Canada’s largest Catholic-operated health-care organization operating 16 health-care facilities in Greater Vancouver.
One of the key figures in the decision to launch the legal action was Zulie Sachedina, who has been Providence’s vice president of human resources and general counsel for the past 15 years. “It was not something that an organization such as ours does lightly,” she says of the Charter challenge. “We’re a large health-care provider and want to stay on the right side of our funders and government. But this became an ethical issue for the organization.”
More at the source: canadianlawyermag.com
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