MONTREAL — The Quebec government directive to the Jewish General Hospital (JGH) to limit the number of off-island patients it treats has been criticized by a cancer advocacy organization, as well as by Jews living outside Montreal.

The Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada (CCAC) says the Montreal Health and Social Services Agency is wrong to order the JGH to turn away patients, especially those who seek care at its comprehensive cancer centre, the first of its kind in the province and renowned for its innovative treatment.

The agency has reiterated that people living off-island should seek care at hospitals in their areas. While the policy applies to all Montreal hospitals, the agency is especially pressuring the JGH, because it’s concerned that it will exceed its budget by taking on too many patients.

“If patient numbers increase, the reasonable approach is for the funding to follow suit rather than jeopardize the standard of care offered to the patients,” said CCAC president Barry Stein.

“By sending patients back to centres that may not be able to offer the same level of care as provided in a specialized cancer centre, such as the JGH Segal Cancer Centre, we may very well be affecting not only their quality of life, but their ability to either prolong their lives or find a cure.”

Stein, a lawyer and colorectal cancer survivor, believes people have a fundamental right to receive health care from the physician of their choice. “This is a matter of government touching on individual freedoms and, in this case, for cancer patients, it is their fundamental right to life.”

The JGH has become “a centre of choice” for colorectal cancer patients, he said, because certain treatments it provides are not available elsewhere in the province.

“This is actually an opportunity for the Ministry of Health to play a positive role by recognizing this centre and providing it with the necessary resources to meet the additional capacity and, indeed, demonstrate that we can have a world-class cancer centre in Quebec for all Quebecers,” Stein said.

The Segal Centre’s director, Gerald Batist, said patients shouldn’t be sent back to hospitals in their home communities without at least a plan ensuring that these facilities can provide the same standard of care.

Patients have a legal right, Batist said, “to access their care where they choose and not just by their postal code.”

The Segal Centre is prepared to work with regional hospitals to co-ordinate care, he said, “but, most of all, it’s about patients receiving the standard of care they require and are entitled to.”

Colorectal radiation therapy at the JGH is particularly advanced, said Te Vuong, director of the Segal’s radiation oncology division.

“The clinical results, in terms of survival, are among the best reported in the world… To deny people from other regions access to these treatments is intolerable and hard to justify,” Vuong said.

For Laval resident Frima Frost Rosen, not being able to go to the JGH has come as a personal blow.

“I was born at the Jewish, [members of] my family were born, treated and some died at the Jewish, all my specialists are at the Jewish. Does this mean I have to move my residence from Laval to the city to be able to continue my health care?” she asks.

She resents that, after a lifetime of paying taxes and contributing to the JGH, people like her will be “deprived of a fundamental right to health care, only due to our address.”

According to the government’s “repatriation” policy, exceptions may be made for off-island patients if their treatment is for “research purposes” or they are seeking a “second opinion.”

The policy was introduced almost two years ago.

Agency spokesperson Geneviève Bettez said that media reports the JGH has been ordered to stop treating off-island patients are inaccurate.

“There is a misunderstanding… The ministry is asking [Montreal island] doctors to make known to new patients who live in the 450 [the area code for the territories surrounding the island] what services are offered in their areas and propose that they go there.

“But, if they prefer, they can go to the hospital they like,” she said. “The law is clear: they can choose. The final decision is the patient’s.”

Bettez said the ministry has been moving toward this way of providing health care for a few years, and the repatriation policy affects every Montreal hospital.

She added that the government has been investing in cancer centres in the region, notably those at the Hôpital de Laval and Hôpital Charles Lemoyne on the South Shore to improve services there.