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By MEGAN O'TOOLE
Canadaeast News Service

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The government will likely be taken to court over Health Minister Mike Murphy's decision to reduce the number of regional health authorities from eight to two, according to a former Supreme Court judge.

Michel Bastarache was one of two legal experts hired by the Committee for Equality in Health Services, a Moncton-based advocacy group, to probe the implications of Murphy's health reforms.

Hubert Dupuis, the group's president, said the changes have created a system that's unfair to francophone New Brunswickers.

Bastarache said Monday it was "most likely" the matter would end up before the courts.

"The real issue is we don't think, on a preliminary basis, that this legislation can withstand judicial scrutiny," Bastarache said.

At the core of the debate is Murphy's decision in March to amalgamate the province's eight regional health authorities, creating two larger bodies: RHA A in Bathurst and RHA B in Miramichi.

The committee has enlisted the services of Bastarache and Moncton lawyer Michel Doucet for legal advice that will determine whether it launches a court challenge.

A primary concern, which the group highlighted in a publicity campaign several months ago, is what Dupuis calls an inequitable distribution of medical services.

He said the primarily francophone authority in Bathurst lacks a number of services that the primarily anglophone authority in Miramichi provides, including facilities for cardiac surgery, neonatal, burns, neurosurgery and child psychiatry.

"Some of these services are duplicated and even triplicated in B, and we don't have any in A," Dupuis said. "There's a discrepancy that is very important. (Murphy) has a moral obligation to correct that."

Because of this difference, the committee believes the reforms could be found to violate Law 88, provincial legislation that recognizes the equality of anglophone and francophone linguistic communities.

The committee has also raised concerns about rural francophone hospitals that will have to operate independently under the new system.

Dupuis pointed to the example of the tiny Stella-Maris Hospital in Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, which previously worked under the jurisdiction of the Beausejour authority.

As an independent institution, Dupuis said, Stella-Maris would have extreme difficulty recruiting doctors. Hospitals in RHA B wouldn't face the same challenges, he said.

Other major issues arise with regard to the Dr. Georges-L. Dumont Regional Hospital, from which the Beausejour authority was administered, Dupuis noted.

Under the old system, the institution was officially labeled as francophone, but Murphy has avoided designating the new authorities along linguistic lines, citing concerns about duality.

Critics say the government's failure to create a new francophone authority in the place of Beausejour amounts to a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 16.1 dictates that French and English linguistic communities in New Brunswick have the right to "distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities."

Dumont's status as a teaching hospital - and a proposal to turn it into an official university hospital that was underway by officials from the now-dissolved francophone health authorities - has complicated matters further.

"The Graham government has effectively stalled a significant co-operative project that was underway (and impeded) the development of a major Acadian institution," Dupuis said.

If the case moves forward, the 2001 Montfort precedent will likely come into play, Bastarache said.

In that year, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the preservation of Ottawa's francophone Montfort hospital, which had been threatened with closure.

Francophones in the area successfully argued that the hospital, which was being used as a training institute for health professionals, was an important cultural and educational institution vital to the province's linguistic minority. The same could be argued for Dumont.

Dupuis said all these issues indicate Murphy's amalgamation decision was flawed.

Officials from the Health Department wouldn't comment on the matter, redirecting queries to the Attorney General's Office.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General T.J. Burke said he couldn't comment on any issue that may land before the courts.