Dosanjh's Biggest Donors Run Medical Firms

Ujjal Dosanjh received $16,000 in campaign donations from two Ontario families involved in health-service companies when he was seeking election to the House of Commons in 2004. Six weeks later, he was named health minister in Paul Martin's Liberal government.

One of those companies advertises itself as being able to "fast track" care for injured people, providing a service to employers by returning their workers to the job more quickly than would the standard care offered by the public health system. An executive from the firm told The Tyee the chain of clinics has arrived at a way "to do business at a new level."

A Tyee review of donor records reveals that on May 31, 2004, Dr. Artaj Singh and Dr. Judith Singh, a husband-wife physician couple from Burlington, Ontario, gave Dosanjh two contributions of $1,750 apiece - a total of $7,000. Four days later, Artaj Singh sent an additional $1000 to Dosanjh through Fort Erie Urgent Care Inc., and on June 7, he added a further $1000 through a private company, 2009221 Ontario Inc.

Burinder S. Ahluwalia and Sonia K. Ahluwalia of Toronto sent $3,000 and $2,000 respectively to Dosanjh on May 31. Two companies owned by Birinder Ahluwalia, BSA Diagnostics Ltd. and BSA Diagnostic Imaging Inc., donated $1,000 apiece on June 7. In total, the Singh family and their companies provided $9,000 to the Dosanjh campaign, while the Ahluwalia family and companies contributed $7,000.

Dosanjh won election to the House of Commons on June 28 and was named health minister on July 20.

War chest filled in Ontario

Dosanjh, a former NDP premier of British Columbia, raised more than two-thirds of his campaign funds in Ontario in 2004. Out of nearly $107,000 in reportable donations, the Vancouver South MP collected nearly $48,000 from Ontario residents and another $25,000 from businesses in that province.

Before returning to Canada a few years ago, Artaj Singh worked as director of health care investments development with the Key Bank in Cleveland, Ohio for a decade. A graduate of Hamilton's McMaster University, he now is the president of Fort Erie Urgent Care Inc. in Fort Erie, Ontario, and Falls Urgent Care Inc. in Niagara Falls.

The two clinics are part of a corporate network of more than a dozen ambulatory centres in the United States and Canada.

Singh was called to comment on the nature of his clinics' business and services, and of his connections to Dosanjh, but directed calls on to his clinical services director Tim Windsor.

"The federal health minister is a personal friend of Dr. Singh's brother," Windsor said, explaining that Ujjal Dosanjh recently met with Singh on a visit through Ontario.

"He (Dosanjh) was here in Niagara Falls in late November, early December. Dr. Singh hosted a press event with the federal health minister at the hotel just to talk about health care in general."

Windsor said at the meeting they talked about solutions for a wounded Canadian health care system.

"The system is broke," Windsor said. "The federal minister can't fix it himself…citizens need to make good choices, like you don't go to emergency for a sore throat."

"What we (Falls Urgent Care Inc.) can do is try to improve wait times and be as efficient as possible. And on a macro level, if the federal health minister puts in policies that work, that can create change."

Clinics boast of 'fast-tracking'

Dosanjh has been a vocal critic of for-profit health care, while portraying himself as a committed defender of Canada's publicly funded Medicare system.

During his tenure, he has pushed a policy to establish acceptable wait time standards in health care. When reasonable standards for certain procedures have been set, then ways to improve wait times can be investigated and implemented, Dosanjh has said.

The issue of wait times has been seen as a wedge for some critics of a two-tier system, who say when wait times are deemed unacceptable, it opens the door for affluent patients to argue private service is justifiable.

But Dosanjh has said: "Our government is committed to ensuring that where such clinics deliver medically necessary services, they will do so in compliance with the Canada Health Act. That means Canadians should not be charged out of pocket for such services. Nor is it permissible under the act for such clinics to be used as a means of jumping the queue for medically necessary services."

In promoting its services to area businesses, Urgent Care Niagara, the umbrella name for Artaj Singh's clinics, promises "fast-tracking ... to help you reduce costly down time for workers."

Windsor said the fast-tracking advertised has nothing to do with queue jumping to get faster service with out of pocket payments, but simply giving priority to patients more severely injured, whether they be, "a worker, a general citizen or a prince."

"Signs in our clinic say based on severity of injury, you will be given priority, or fast-tracked. We've just been able to take that same clinic strategy, and turn around to (go to) the employment community with that," Windsor said.

"We do not do queue-jumping here. I would say that is absolutely false, not even on the radarscope. You can not come in and pay to get faster service, we are not like an MRI facility," Windsor said.

He added Singh's clinics can provide service at a much lower cost than hospitals with their large infrastructure costs, thus saving tax-payers money.

New business model?

Asked where Singh's clinic sits in the contentious continuum of public and private health care providers recently noted in a CBC documentary, Windsor said it is a complicated issue.

"The whole public-private debate is a little misplaced," Windsor said. "All doctors' offices, in some ways, are private enterprises, making business decisions. We are just choosing to do business at a different level. We are a publicly funded private business. We see the OHIP card as a credit card."

Windsor said employers appreciate Singh's clinics' business model because it encourages getting workers back to work without any undue delays, the patient's get quick treatment, and tax payers pay less in the end.

"We are applying some common sense business acumen to health care, and health care and business do not have to be contradictory words," Windsor said.

Will McMartin is a regular columnist for The Tyee and Sam Cooper is a reporter for The Tyee.