Interior Health has been ordered to stop withholding information related to the contract for service providers at the Kelowna Urgent and Primary Care Centre.
The order comes from the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia after a member of a union, the Health Sciences Association, filed a Freedom of Information request.
The union member was seeking 127-pages of documents including the “IHA Standard Service Contract” between nurse practitioners and another with health profession corporations, along with appendices
“From what I can glean from the submissions, IHA, the health authority for the Interior Region of British Columbia, is attempting to address the shortage of primary care health services that emerged owing to the lack of sufficient family physicians,” wrote OIPC adjudicator Jay Fedorak in an Oct. 7 order.
“As one approach, it has established Urgent and Primary Care Centres, where it employs medical professionals on contract to provide the services that family physicians would otherwise provide.”
Fedorak said the union member “contends that the creation of these centres exacerbates rather than alleviates the problems resulting from the shortage of family physicians. He is seeking access to the contracts and related information to discover the details of how much the physicians involved are compensated.”
Interior Health responded to the request by withholding the entire document on the grounds the disclosure would harm intergovernmental relations and would harm the financial interests of the health authority.
After the applicant requested a review by the privacy commissioner’s office, IH released some information, but still held back some details. Mediation failed to resolve the remaining issues and the applicant asked for an inquiry.
In his ruling, Fedorak rejected Interior Health’s reasoning for withholding the records, noting the health authority did not explain how the release of records would harm any of IH’s relationships.
