Introducing… Health Justice!
We are thrilled to introduce you to Health Justice, a new non-profit human rights organization that will research, educate, and advocate to improve the laws and policies that govern coercive health care in BC.
What is coercive health care?
Being able to make informed decisions about your own body and your health care is a fundamental human right protected in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international human rights treaties. Health care is coercive when your ability to make your own health care decisions is taken away by laws or policies.
Coercion can occur in different ways and with different levels of intervention. Here are some examples:
being persuaded to agree to treatment under the threat or suggestion that there will be a negative consequence if you don’t
ignoring the wishes you expressed when you were well and confident in your decision-making
having health care choices limited so your preferred options are not open to you
being physically restrained and having treatment forcibly administered
People with mental health and substance use-related health issues, people with other kinds of disabilities, people living in poverty, Indigenous people, and racialized people are more likely to experience coercive health care.
Experiencing coercive care can create trauma and cause people to avoid health care and other services in the future. It can damage the relationships between health care providers and patients, which is an important part of treatment and recovery. It can take away dignity and lead to worse health outcomes.
What will Health Justice do?
Health Justice’s mission is to promote a health care system in BC that uses coercive care as a last resort, which means that people need access to the services they choose when they choose to access them. We work to ensure that whenever coercive care is used, people are treated with dignity and their human rights are respected. Involving people and the personal supporters they trust to help them with decisions as active participants in their health care leads to more effective treatment.
Finally, we advocate for effective transparency and independent oversight of coercive health care in BC. Coercive care is a serious step and checks and balances must be in place to make sure it happens fairly and in a way that respects human rights.
Our first initiative will be a review of BC’s Mental Health Act, which we’re excited to tell you more about in the next few weeks. We are grateful for the tremendous amount of support we have been receiving from so many in our community to launch this new organization and the Law Foundation of BC for providing the funding to make this possible.
In the meantime, we look forward to working with you to create change in BC! Please check out the rest of our site to learn more about Health Justice.