union members voted to launch the civil action in May of last year<\/a>, Da Prat told SooToday\u2019s David Helwig the objective was to \u201cget the Group Health Centre back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe want to get the board structure back the way it was [before 2012], and we want to make sure that it’s recognized that the people that built the Group Health Centre are the members of the Group Health Centre, along with other people,” the union president said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If there’s a case where some enrolment needs to be reduced, it’s going to have to be done on the basis of the people that came last. The other thing is, people should remain members of the group \u2013 and as doctors come in, they should be on a priority list for obtaining doctors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That’s the way the intent once was. It was never intended to be career choices or retirements of doctors would affect the membership of the patients,\u201d Da Prat continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The Group Health Centre is ours. And it was simply taken away from us.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her written decision, Cullin determined that even if Da Prat is successful in arguing that Group Health Association continues to be obligated to him through the subscriber agreement, that agreement doesn\u2019t require the organization to deliver OHIP-funded care.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe subscriber agreement is an agreement to deliver privately-funded health-care services paid by the premiums of its subscribers, an arrangement which I view as similar to facilities such as Medcan or Telus Health,\u201d Cullin wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, if the defendants have any obligation to the plaintiff, it is not to re-roster him, but rather to explore the available options for privately-funded health-care services, provided he is prepared to pay the attendant premiums for those services.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cullin also determined\u00a0the plaintiff\u2019s claim that the subscriber agreement had been breached due to his de-rostering doesn\u2019t \u201cmeet the threshold of a strong prima facie case.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the legal battle launched\u00a0by the union boss may not be over\u00a0yet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As part of the written decision, Da Prat has been authorized by the courts to take legal action against Group Health Association for breach of contract on behalf of all de-rostered members of the subscriber agreement\u00a0so individual lawsuits aren’t needed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The plaintiff has been granted a 60-day window to amend the June 2024 statement of claim.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
– with files from David Helwig\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Superior Court dismisses motion brought forward by Steelworkers Local 2251 president Mike Da Prat to re-roster ousted patients…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,23816,84,392],"class_list":["post-30674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-group-health-centresuperior-courtmike-da-pratstatement-of-claimunited-steelworkers-local-2251civil-claimde-rosteringsault-ste-marie-and-district-group-health-association","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}