Photo: Contributed

Dr. Allan Ruddiman

An Oliver doctor seeking the top post at Doctors of B.C. hopes a run-off campaign will focus on more than just the differences between him and his opponent on private health care.

Doctors of B.C. (formerly the B.C. Medical Association) announced Monday that a recount of ballots from the election completed last week show Dr. Alan Ruddiman in a tie with Dr. Brian Day, a Vancouver orthopedic surgeon and co-owner of the private Cambie Surgery Centre. 

The recount was ordered after the initial election had Ruddiman and Day within one vote of each other at 945-946. A run-off election will now be held June 5-18. All members in good standing are eligible to cast online ballots.

Ruddiman said in an interview Tuesday, “My campaign has never been about … advocating for public medicine at the forefront of my message.”

He acknowledged there is a striking difference between himself and Day on the issue of public vs. private healthcare.

“As a premise, I support publicly funded healthcare. My medical association (also) does,” said Ruddiman. 

“We don’t believe in private, for-profit (systems) where patients have to pay extra for service that should be delivered in B.C. And that’s clearly what separates Dr. Day and I.”

Meanwhile, Day says use of the term “private, for-profit” medicine by his opponents is intended to over-simplify and denigrate his position on a “very complex issue.”

He said there is no other country that enforces a government monopoly on healthcare to the same extent as Canada.

Raised in post-war Liverpool, Day experienced the British National Health Service first-hand. “They never outlawed competition,” he said.

Using his own Cambie Surgery Centre as an example, he said a B.C. resident on a waiting list for knee surgery is prohibited by law from going to the clinic and paying for the operation.

Ironically, he said, a B.C. resident who is injured on the job and whose treatment is covered by Workers Compensation is allowed to use a private provider.

“The question is: who owns your body, you or the government?” he said.

Day said if he is chosen as president-elect, he will advocate for changes to the system that will address shortcomings in Canadian medicine. 

A recent Commonwealth Fund survey of industrialized countries placed Canada 10th out of 11 countries in efficiency of health-care delivery. Only the U.S. was rated worse.