Clinic not violating laws charging for ultrasound procedures in Manitoba

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This article was published 16/04/2018 (3061 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s nothing wrong with a private Winnipeg clinic charging for ultrasound and echocardiogram exams, despite it not being licensed to do so, Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen says.

“It doesn’t appear to be that they are in violation in Manitoba,” he told reporters Monday.

The Prota Clinic on Lorimer Boulevard is advertising it has ultrasound and echocardiograms for purchase.

Both procedures were designated in the 1990s as excluded services not requiring licensing, so the clinic is doing nothing wrong by not having a licence to carry out the procedures, the health minister said.

He wasn’t a part of the Manitoba legislature when that decision was made, and couldn’t immediately say why the two services were excluded.

Goertzen said he would be looking into the situation further.

In the legislature, NDP Leader Wab Kinew demanded to know why Prota is charging for the services.

“Why aren’t these covered by public health?” he said.

There are various types of health services offered privately across Canada, especially as a result of long wait times, Goertzen told Kinew.

Kinew later said in a media scrum Goertzen not answering questions about the licensing issue in the house shows there’s a problem.

“This is a clinic that’s advertising private services that the federal minister of health says should be covered under the provincial plan, but now we’re left with even a more basic question than whether it should be covered by public health care. We’re asking: do they have a licence?”

— with files from Larry Kusch

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca