Q. “Access to health care is a fundamental right in Quebec, but could we not pass a law so that the unvaccinated, without valid medical reason, pay for the cost of treatments and drugs if they are suffering from COVID? This would prevent the community from paying for individual choices… ”
Real Bilodeau
R. The question has arisen a few times since the start of the pandemic. Our colleague Francis Vailles, citing a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), recalled in a column that a patient hospitalized for COVID-19 costs $ 15,000, a bill that climbs to $ 50,000 when intensive care is required. We are talking about a hospital bill four times higher than that of an average hospital stay.
When asked to doctors, as our colleague Patrick Lagacé has already done in our pages, their answer seems unequivocal: they choose to treat humans above all, regardless of their beliefs and decisions.
More broadly, of course, there are ethical principles that guide physicians’ decisions. And by taking the Hippocratic Oath, they are committed to saving lives, no matter who is in front of them.
Singapore has nevertheless chosen to follow this path. In a report broadcast last month, Radio-Canada journalist Philippe Leblanc explained that as of December 8, unvaccinated people will have to pay the bill for their care and hospital costs.
This is the solution chosen by this city-state of Southeast Asia, which has about 6 million inhabitants, to convince everyone to get vaccinated.
It should be noted that Singapore is not lagging behind in terms of vaccination: with 94% vaccination rate among those aged 12 and over, it is among the places in the world where we find the highest proportion of people vaccinated. A quarter of the population has already received a third dose.
When we look at hospitalizations, we note that the unvaccinated are over-represented.
The 6% of unvaccinated account for 60% of hospitalizations, observes a doctor interviewed by the journalist of Radio-Canada.
But, because there is a but… Singapore’s health care system is very different from ours. It already operates on the user-pays model, partly subsidized by the state. People with COVID-19 were exempt from these fees. We therefore exempt the unvaccinated from this exemption.
The Quebec health system has chosen to offer care to everyone, including smokers and all people who refuse to obey their doctor’s recommendations. Opening the door to modifying care on a case-by-case basis appears to us to be a slippery slope that it is better not to take.