Health Canada backs off on consent form

Page 3

Remember that March 1 deadline for signing a government consent form or doing without non-insured health care?

Forget about it. The deadline is history. The government has changed its mind.

The government has scrapped the universal, national consent form after facing an aggressive lobby against it by First Nations and Inuit leaders and much suspicion from people that the data collected with the form would be used to undermine health care entitlements.

Last year when Health Canada's Non-Insured Health Branch (NIHB) was pushing the form, director general Leslie MacLean said there were very specific goals the form was designed to achieve-help pay the bills, predict trends in medical services and share information with health care professionals to protect people's safety. There was also a requirement under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that had to be met, she said.

The goal of NIHB has now been articulated as such: to monitor clients for unusually high prescription drug use and seek to identify "individuals of concern." Those who use a lot of prescription drugs without a legitimate reason will be asked to sign consent forms.

Rather than call the new development a reversal of position, Health Canada called it a new approach to the consent initiative.

"Under this new approach, the NIHB program will not require a signed consent form for day-to-day processing activities and program administration. NIHB clients will therefore continue to receive benefits for which they are eligible even if they have not signed a consent form," a government release stated. "Several factors have made this new approach possible. These include an evolving privacy environment, feedback from First Nations, Inuit and other stakeholders, and insights gained during the past three years. This approach respects the privacy rights of clients and is consistent with current privacy legislation."

The government statement also said, "One of the keys to this approach to privacy is providing clients with clear information on how and why their personal health information will be collected, used and protected. Health Canada will continue its privacy awareness efforts in collaboration with First Nations and Inuit to ensure that clients know how their information is used and protected."

Attempts to contact Health Canada for additional comments were unsuccessful.

The government's change of plans was "Our victory," said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, whose executive and staff bent the ears of government officials to get the change.

"It was our victory and of course we should celebrate it. It tells me that this government is willing to listen. But more importantly, it goes beyond just listening."

About 160,000 Non-Insured Health Benefit clients-out of about 735,000-have signed the consent form. Those people who have signed can let their consent form stand, or they can withdraw their written consent.

The AFN has appointed Dr. Marlyn Cook, Dr. Michael Perley, Dr. Cornelia Wieman, and Rick Volpel to the Drug Utilization Review committee, which will develop the criteria to identify people at risk of abusing prescription drugs.

Manitoba regional Chief Francis Flett organized three conferences on the health consent issue in his region during the last year and was a vocal critic of the government initiative.

"Well, it is a huge victory right now anyway. If we can hold it back for a certain amount of time. Right now, it's not in force. But we need to take a look at some of those things and say 'Well, do we really have people out there abusing drug use or addicted to certain drugs that we need to watch out for?'"