I find the Court Ordered Committee and Committee by Certificate of Incapability very confusing.
It seems that a Court Ordered Committee has transparency, but the Certificate of Incapability does not.
There is something inherently wrong with the Certificate of Incapability process. It reminds me of the process the Star Chamber Courts followed in England centuries ago. Decisions were made in secrecy without due process and with no appeal. The tribunal was allowed to torture an accused but not kill him, much like giving morphine to a patient but not killing him. But if you torture an accused too much or if you give a patient too much morphine, they will die.
The Public Guardian and Trustee does an investigation, makes a recommendation, sends it to a health authority designate (an employee of VCHA), and after reading the recommendation, the HAD signs the certificate, probably from the bottom of his "to-do list." The subjected person becomes a nonperson, and the Public Guardian and Trustee becomes the committee of this now nonperson who before was a person. What happens to the nonperson if he was relocated...I do not know, and there is no way for the public to know, as such information is confidential.
Under privacy, the public is not entitled to know. In New Zealand, identifying those under guardianship is against the law. And the person elected cannot identify himself. And the press is gagged. It must be the same in British Columbia. These evils must be replicated in other jurisdictions.
I remember when Randy, my husband, was being relocated by VGH to a long care facility, no one at VCH would tell me what happened to him. I still remember the terror of not knowing. From the day of his accident and for six months, I visited Randy every day. Never had a problem. When I approached the nursing station, the eight nurses at the nursing station looked down at me as if they enjoyed watching me being in a state of confusion and terror. Not one of them broke rank and told me. And they all knew. Again it was privacy. It was against policy to tell where a patient was being transferred to. The nurses did not tell me that it was a privacy/policy thing. It was cruel. And what would have happened to anyone of them if one of them told me. Nothing. The absurdity of privacy. It harms. It does not protect. It isolates. It drove me to the edge of madness.
My mind went back to the first time I spoke with a social worker at VGH, it was the end of her shift, and she was in a hurry to leave. Her words to me were to forget about Randy as they would look after him. And she ran out the door. Who were they? And who was she? From that moment on, I became inwardly afraid but I did not know why. The social worker's foregone conclusion was based on arrogant stupidity. Later I learned that a social worker is an officer of the court, and I was right to be apprehensive.
