Hospital Appeal Board

The Hospital Appeal Board is a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal continued under Section 46 of the Hospital Act.

Doctors of BC is required by the Hospital Act to submit at least three (3) names to the Ministry. The Minister of Health must appoint, after a merit based process, one member to the Hospital Appeal Board from amongst these three (3) nominees.

In BC, most hospitals are organized to provide for hospital care for the patients of private medical practitioners.  However, before a practitioner will be allowed to serve a patient in a hospital, he or she must obtain a permit from the “board of management”, which authorizes the treatment of patients in the hospital under the Hospital Act.  These permits are more commonly known as “hospital privileges” or “admitting privileges”.

The Hospital Appeal Board’s fundamental purpose is to provide a specialized, independent, accessible and cost-effective avenue of appeal, as an alternative to the court process, for health practitioners who disagree with a decision of a hospital’s board of management regarding the granting of hospital privileges.  The Board hears appeals filed by medical practitioners, dentists registered under the Dentists Act, midwives or any person registered as a member of a
prescribed health profession from:

• A decision of a hospital’s board of management that modifies, refuses, suspends, revokes or fails to renew a practitioner’s permit to practice in a hospital.
• The failure or refusal of a hospital’s board of management to consider and decide on an application for a permit in a timely manner.