As the founder and medical director of a private clinic Cambie Surgery Centre and Specialist Referral Clinic[2] in Vancouver, British Columbia, Day is a spokesperson for a high-profile, multi-year and ongoing lawsuit against the provincial government, Cambie Surgeries Corporation v. British Columbia (Medical Services Commission).
[1] He obtained his medical degrees, MB ChB from the University of Manchester, and post-graduate qualifications in both internal medicine and general surgery.
[5] From 1970 to 2014, Day wrote more than 150 scientific articles or book chapters, in areas of orthopaedics and arthroscopic surgery / sports medicine, and on the topic of health policy.
"[3] In 2015, Day was temporarily announced as the president-elect for Doctors of BC, the provincial medical association in British Columbia, because of a win by a single vote difference.
Day then lost the subsequent run-off election in June 2015 to Alan Ruddiman by 603 votes after the publicity about the single-vote win escalated participation to the highest turnout by physician members of the association.
"[14] He is referred to as "Dr. Profit" by opponents who believe his legal challenges will threaten Canada's publicly funded medicare system, and Prophet by supporters for his advocacy of a role for patient choice and the right to obtain private insurance in the face of long government wait lists for care.
In the 2005 Chaoulli v Quebec (AG) decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down prohibitions on private insurance in that province because it was an infringement of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms; the decision did not extend to the rest of Canada, but constitutional experts opined that it would certainly have major impact on similar cases brought to court elsewhere.
He advocates a patient-centered system with a greater role for competition in Canadian healthcare as a means to reduce waiting times and save government money by treating people before their condition worsens.
For instance, his submission to Roy Romanow's Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada made 10 recommendations: In May 2009, Day drew criticism after he was shown in a series of television ads for a US lobby group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights that opposed President Obama's health care reforms.
The Cambie Surgery Centre has 50 full- and part-time nurses and 125 doctors performing operations and other procedures for up to 5,000 patients a year which may be the busiest private hospital in Canada.
[18] Day has said he decided to set up the Cambie Surgical Centre, which is non-union, after government funding decreased in the mid-90s cut his operating time at UBC from 17 hours a week to about six.
[8] He succeeded in convincing notable Vancouverites such as the late Milan Ilich and Jack Poole, as well as Kip Woodward (chair of Providence Health Care and future chair of Vancouver Coastal Health), and 19 others including Jim Wyse and Hugh Magee,[8] to commit $100,000 each with the remainder financed by the Royal Bank of Canada.
[29] On September 10, 2020 Justice John J. Steeves, of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (BCSC), handed down his 880-page decision, in which he found that the "impugned provisions do not deprive the right to life or liberty of the patient plaintiffs or similarly situated individuals."
He said that there was a "rational connection between the effects of the impugned provisions and the objectives of preserving...the universal health care system and ensuring access to necessary medical services is based on need and not the ability to pay.