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A Burnaby senior who has watched friends suffer through painful bouts of shingles is accusing B.C.’s health ministry of discriminating against seniors because it doesn’t cover the cost of the vaccine for the viral infection.

Thomas Hasek, 75, filed a complaint about the ministry to the human rights tribunal and argued at his recent hearing that the $200 he spent on a vaccine should have been covered under B.C.’s Medical Services Plan, as are other vaccines.

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“This is an old person’s disease,” said Hasek, a retired exploration geologist. “It essentially only affects old people.”

And he argued during the two-day hearing, where he faced a phalanx of government lawyers, that because it almost exclusively affects older people, B.C.’s health policy denying coverage discriminates against people based on their age.

“Chicken pox vaccines are covered for kids,” he said. “The government pays for a whole host of vaccines.”