A Montreal physician who provided medical care to three fellow passengers aboard an Air Canada flight has won $1,000 in compensation.
But Dr. Henry Coopersmith, who was flying with his wife for a honeymoon in Paris about three years ago, said the case isn't about money.
"It's about the principle, and especially about the legal and ethical obligations of a physician," Coopersmith told CTV News.
Coopersmith had initially sought $3,058 from Air Canada -- a sum equaling the combined price of his first-class ticket, the value of his medical services and compensation for a lost day of vacation.
During the Oct. 11, 2006, flight, the cabin crew asked over the jet's intercom if there were any physicians on board to help with three passengers who had fallen ill.
Coopersmith answered the call and provided care for two of the passengers, while a second physician cared for a third passenger.
Coopersmith returned to his seat and fell asleep, but he would soon be awoken because a female passenger was having a panic attack.
"About half-an-hour later, the chief stewardess came over and woke me up again, she said '(Another) passenger wants to give the woman a needle ... I don't know if he is really a doctor, can you come back?'"
The doctor obliged and helped the female passenger through her anxiety attack. Later, Coopersmith was awoken again to fill out paperwork and file an incident report.
Coopersmith said he didn't get any sleep during the flight.
According to the court's ruling, when the flight crew asked Coopersmith to help out a third time, the airline had, in essence, hired the doctor.
Air Canada is looking at the ruling and deciding whether to appeal or not, according to CTV Montreal's Genevieve Beauchemin.
The airline says that its crews are trained in first aid and can call doctors on the ground for advice, Still, the airline says it also asks for volunteers on flights from time to time, Beauchemin added.
While a professional should be paid for providing services, ethicist Margaret Somerville said the decision to pursue payment is misguided, "because there's a principal that is so fundamental to medicine of altruism."
Dr. Jeff Blackmer, ethics director at the Canadian Medical Association, echoed that opinion, and said: "there is actually a paragraph in the CMA Code of Ethics that does direct physicians to provide care to those who need it, particularly when that need is urgent."
However, Coopersmith maintains that a panic attack isn't considered urgent.
"We are also passengers on vacation," he said. "We are entitled to have some freedom, and if we act, then we do so on someone else's behalf, and we get paid for it."
