B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender says she has found “systemic discrimination” in how health authorities detain vulnerable adults who are at risk of harm.
Adults who appear to be abused, neglected, or facing self-neglect and are unable to give consent for care in hospitals or care facilities are sometimes detained under the Adult Guardianship Act (AGA). However, the 134-page report found that seniors, disabled people, and those living unhoused are being disproportionately detained.
These detentions, Govender said, often lack transparency, oversight, and legal authority.
“I have found that a significant number of vulnerable adults are being detained under this act through an opaque process with very little oversight,” she said.
“While adults are being held for their own safety, their rights to fair process, including knowing why they are being held against their will or what they can do about it, are often denied.”
The report found that between 2018 and September 2023, health authorities detained 300 people under the AGA. There were a total of 340 detentions — the shortest being six days, and the longest 212.
Govender said 94 per cent of the people detained under the act during that period had disabilities, and 70 per cent were seniors.
Changes to legislation expected in wake of report
Govender makes 10 recommendations in the report for the B.C. Ministry of Attorney General, the Ministry of Health, and health authorities. They include:
- Providing those detained with written reasons for their detention and not holding them for longer than the emergency.
- Ensuring each detained person has legal representation.
- Creating an independent process for people to challenge their detentions.
- Amending the AGA to clarify legality of detention in emergency situations.
The current legislation does not explicitly allow for people to be detained under normal circumstances, but Govender says health authorities have interpreted different parts of the Adult Guardianship Act to support their practice of detaining people in an emergency who are at risk of harm.
She says she expects legislative changes to take place soon, something she signaled was overdue.
“I reviewed documents that suggest government recognized the importance of taking timely and significant action and was aware of concerns about continuing risk of harm to vulnerable adults,” said Govender.
“Despite this, the government has not proposed any legislative changes or made any other significant policy changes to date to protect the rights of vulnerable adults.”
While B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma said she intends to respond to all of the recommendations, she would not say what specific actions she intends to take in the legislature as a result of the report.
“We need to make sure in the province that vulnerable people are protected, and that piece of legislation hasn’t been updated in quite some time,” said Sharma.
“We’ve been looking at it since 2019, where we need to strengthen the protections for adults in that piece of legislation, and I’m grateful for the work that [Govender] did.”
Detentions take significant toll on individuals, report says
A 2019 B.C. Supreme Court decision found that a woman who had been detained by Fraser Health for over 11 months under the AGA without being given reasons for her detention or legal representation violated her charter rights.
The report also shares composites of the experiences people detained by the AGA and their loved ones went through, with anonymized quotes from those affected by the detentions.
One woman, who the report calls Rose, fought to get her husband of 10 years out of detention after he had a fall when she was not home. Her husband, who had a history of seizures and dementia, was taken to a hospital by police following a wellness check.
Although she was able to visit him daily, the report says he was moved one day to a long-term care facility based on his son’s substitute consent — and no one would tell Rose where he had gone. After searching for three months, the report says Rose finally found the long-term care home where he has been moved.
“He just looked up at me — he couldn’t believe it was me — he just started to cry…. He said, ‘I thought you’d never find me,'” the report says.
Erika Cedillo, director of public policy at Inclusion BC, says that in trying to protect people from harm, this report shows further harm is being done — particularly to vulnerable people.
She hopes to see these changes made in a way that puts an emphasis on making information about detentions accessible to people with disabilities and improving accountability.
“It really shines a light where there has been little attention and where rife violations are happening,” Cedillo said.
“Whenever we’re limiting the rights of a person, there needs to be strong oversight so those powers are not abused.”
