VANCOUVER—David Dennis has been sober since June, but that’s not long enough to get on the transplant list for a new liver and without it, he has only one month to live.

The 42-year-old Indigenous man from Vancouver has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal over the abstinence policy that excludes him from the life-saving transplant.

Dennis — who is of Nuu-chah-nulth ancestry — said that he has been sober since June 2019, but the complaint filed with the human rights tribunal says he was denied a place on the liver-transplant list because he hasn’t abstained from alcohol for six months as required by the province.

Tuesday afternoon, Dennis stopped for lunch with friends at White Spot to enjoy some of his favourite foods, including caesar salad and cheesecake, before checking into a palliative care centre.

He has been told that he is not expected to live past Sept. 15, and despite the grim prognosis, Dennis said he considers himself lucky. “I have a fairly good social circle, I have good friendships and I feel really lucky to have that type of support.”

He will spend the next few weeks in palliative care before returning home to live out his days. Dennis has five children, the youngest of whom is a five-year-old daughter.

“I’m not just at the bottom of the waiting list for a liver transplant; I’ve been kicked off the list entirely,” Dennis said in a statement. “I want to continue to live and be here for my children and family. But if I don’t make it, I want the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and Frank Paul Society to carry on and get rid of this lethal form of racism.”

The complaint, filed jointly with the Frank Paul Society and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) on Tuesday, said the abstinence policy discriminates against Dennis on the grounds of race, ancestry and physical disability.

It names the Ministry of Health, the Provincial Health Services Agency, Vancouver Coastal Health and the B.C. Transplant Society as respondents, saying they are “jointly responsible” for the abstinence policy, which the complainants allege discriminates against Indigenous people because they have “disproportionately higher rates of alcohol-use disorder largely due to centuries of racist and harmful colonial practices,” including intergenerational trauma from residential schools.

In a statement Tuesday, a B.C. Transplant spokesperson said while the organization does not publicly discuss the specific details of individual cases due to patient privacy, it would review Dennis’s case together with the Liver Transplant Team at Vancouver Coastal Health.

“BC Transplant is aware of this case and appreciates the distress that patients and their loved ones face when needing an organ transplant. It is a difficult time for all those involved and we do everything we can to support patients through the process,” said Irene Phan of B.C. Transplant.

The remedies they seek are a place on the liver transplant list for Dennis, an end to the abstinence policy and a declaration that the policy is discriminatory to Dennis, Indigenous people and people with alcohol-use disorders.

In the statement, Dennis said there is “little or no” scientific evidence to back the abstinence policy, because “liver transplant outcomes are not meaningfully correlated with six months of abstinence from alcohol.”

Jason Gratl, a legal counsel for Dennis, said that the abstinence requirement “is neither necessary or desirable,” adding he is hopeful that the case could result in a province-wide change.

“The abstinence policy is a vestige of an earlier moralist age that took a more prohibitive attitude toward alcohol use disorder... and unflinchingly callous attitude toward Indigenous people,” said Gratl.

UBCIC Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said the policy was part of a larger pattern of “discriminatory denial” of health services to Indigenous people.

“The abstinence policy is another case of an antiquated, moralizing policy that disproportionately punishes Indigenous peoples without any scientific rationale,” said Phillip.

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“This is an easy win for the government to make good on its commitments toward reconciliation and equity. We are looking for immediate action — it is unconscionable for even one more person to suffer as a result of the abstinence policy.”

In 2017, Delilah Saunders, an Inuk woman from Labrador, highlighted the issue of the abstinence policy for liver transplants after she was denied a spot on the list due to only being sober for three months. A number of high profile groups include Amnesty International Canada lent their support to her case.

In 2018, Ontario’s Trillium Gift of Life Network, which oversees transplants, launched a three year pilot project that waives the six-month abstinence policy for liver transplants, which is currently underway.

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