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Insite decision is hypocritical

Chronic illnesses deserve consideration, too.

To the editor:

According to the Supreme Court ruling, drug addicts now have constitutional rights to free medical treatment via drug treatment centres like Insite. Vancouver’s Insite is funded by both the B.C. Ministry of Health ($1.2 million per year) and Health Canada ($0.5 million per year).

The clinic provides free needles and free medical

care to those addicted to drugs. The argument used by all nine Supreme Court judges was that closing the clinic would violate drug users’ constitutional rights and “potential denial of health services and the correlative increase risk of death and disease”.

Using the same logic, shouldn’t people who have chronic illnesses, such as people with Type 1 diabetes, be given the same constitutional right to free life-sustaining medical supplies (i.e. insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems which have been proven the best possible treatment for people with Type 1 diabetes)?

Why are drug addicts getting free treatment for their “illness” while those with chronic diseases are not?

 

Tracy Wu

Surrey