Lyme disease patient handed hefty FOI bill
A woman suffering from Lyme disease had to turn to crowd funding to figure out why a BC government effort to treat the disease has gone off the rails.
Gwen Barlee says the province opened a special clinic in 2013 but over the last few months three doctors have thrown in the towel.
Barlee says she was given a $2160 bill when she filed an FOI for documents to find out why.
“I was very concerned that the government was charging over $2000 to access those records, and again said they weren’t in the public interest. What that is about, I am assuming, is the BC governmment doesn’t want potentially embarassing records being made public. But the public has a right to these records and lyme disease patients definitely have a right to these records.”
Barlee says the BC government should be making it easier to access information, not putting up roadblocks.