The Honourable Christine Elliott
Minister of Health
College Park 5th Floor, 777 Bay Street
Toronto, ON M7A 2J3
Dear Minister Elliott:
RE: Follow-up on critical care triage – Ongoing human rights concerns and the need for public consultation
I hope this letter finds you well. Thank you for speaking with me in December 2020 and confirming your commitment to human rights and your interest in ensuring that our stakeholders’ concerns are appropriately heard. As you know, since April 2020, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has voiced the importance of respecting human rights when triaging critical care during the pandemic. The OHRC has sought to promote an equity-sensitive approach that is fair, transparent and founded on human rights principles.
Since last year, the OHRC has called on the Government to publicly release and consult with human rights stakeholders on various iterations of the critical care triage protocol and framework. Throughout this time, the OHRC has undertaken all best efforts to support the COVID-19 Bioethics Table in its work to revise a triage framework that respects human rights.
We are writing to highlight certain issues about the most recent triage-related documents that the Ontario Critical Care COVID-19 Command Centre has disseminated to health-care administrators and, once again, to offer our support to your Ministry in hopes of ensuring that the concerns and interests of human rights stakeholders will be heard.
As you know, last December, the OHRC worked collaboratively with the COVID-19 Bioethics Table to facilitate a consultation with human rights stakeholders on the September 11 version of the proposed triage framework document. The Bioethics Table prepared a summary of the meeting and circulated it to participants. The summary also included an appendix prepared by the OHRC summarizing its recommendations for the Bioethics Table and your Ministry’s consideration.
Early this year, the OHRC obtained a copy of the Emergency Standard of Care dated January 13, 2021. We also obtained copies of related supplementary materials on the Emergency Standard of Care:
- Template letters to be sent to patients informing them they will not receive critical care and/or that critical care is being withdrawn without their consent
- An online short-term mortality risk calculator with digitized clinical tools to assess mortality
- Critical Care Services Ontario’s January 23, 2021, webinar and slide deck to help disseminate the Emergency Standard of Care within the sector.
While the OHRC appreciates that the Emergency Standard of Care refers to human rights principles and obligations in its introduction, we remain concerned about the following issues that we raised earlier:
- The reliance on a 12-month predicted mortality timeline is excessive and risks discriminatory biases
- The use of clinical assessment tools not validated for critical care triage also risks discriminatory bias
- The need to account for the human rights duty to accommodate throughout the decision-making process including when assessing a patient’s predicted mortality
- The need to ensure the legal right to due process and transparency for triaging decisions, including an effective mechanism for the right to appeal a decision that disproportionately impacts the right to life of vulnerable groups
- The need to ensure appropriate human rights training and guidance for healthcare service providers so that they can implement the standard equitably and effectively.
Further, while the OHRC appreciates that the Emergency Standard of Care is intended to be an “evergreen” document, we are concerned that this document and supplementary materials (including the online short-term mortality risk calculator) are being shared within the health-care sector with potentially discriminatory content and without sufficient public input or consultation. We are also concerned that the previous March 2020 version of the protocol, which was intended to be rescinded in October 2020, may still be in circulation and relied upon by health-care partners, particularly given something to this effect was noted in the above-cited January 23, 2021, webinar regarding emergency/ambulance services.
Stakeholders – including ARCH Disability Law Centre and the AODA Alliance – have expressed serious concerns that the government may act on calls for an emergency order to suspend certain provisions of the Health Care Consent Act, allowing doctors to withdraw patients from critical care without their consent, or that of their families or substitute decision-makers, and without independent oversight.
The OHRC understands that granting doctors such decision-making power is an extraordinary measure and one the Government will not take lightly. The OHRC also understands that your Ministry wishes to ensure that human rights stakeholders concerns are properly considered and understood. In light of this, we cannot overstate that even if the Government does not issue an emergency order, the lack of transparency regarding the status of the Emergency Standard of Care, plans regarding next steps and questions regarding due process are causing grave concern among vulnerable groups. We believe these concerns must be addressed immediately, particularly given the existence of new, highly transmissible variants of COVID-19.
The OHRC believes that now is the time to act to make sure that frameworks and protocols for triage decisions that are consistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code are in place before a potential third wave overwhelms Ontario’s health-care system.
We call on the Government to publicly release and consult human rights stakeholders including the OHRC on the latest versions of the proposed triage framework and the Emergency Standard of Care. There is an urgent need to make sure that vulnerable groups who may be disproportionately affected have an opportunity to share their perspectives while there is still time, and before the proposed triage framework and/or Emergency Standard of Care and related materials are finalized.
Sincerely,
Ena Chadha, LL.B., LL.M.
Chief Commissioner
cc: Helen Angus, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Health
Matthew Anderson, President and CEO of Ontario Health
Jennifer Gibson, Co-Chair, COVID-19 Bioethics Table
Dr. Andrew Baker, Incident Commander, Ontario Critical Care COVID-19 Command Centre
Hon. Doug Downey, Attorney General
David Corbett, Deputy Attorney General, Ministry of the Attorney General
OHRC Commissioners