Ontario balks at reviewing act that governs physician’s conduct
The provincial health minister says decades-old legislation that governs Ontario’s medical regulatory body will not be reviewed, despite criticism that the act protects physicians before patients.
The NDP’s provincial health critic, France Gélinas, said the act should be overhauled to include more mandatory sanctions and to compel the college to contact police if they know about sexual abuse cases.
Dr. Eric Hoskins, the province’s minister of health and long-term care, said the College of Physicians and Surgeons is mandated to use the Regulated Health Professions Act to best serve and protect public interest.
But a recent case has critics calling for a review of the zero-tolerance law, which was enacted in 1994 in response to a groundbreaking task force report three years earlier on the sexual abuse of patients by health professionals.
Mississauga family physician Dr. Sastri Maharajh was disciplined for professional misconduct by the college last summer after he admitted to sexually abusing up to 13 women by either putting his mouth on or resting his cheek on their breasts.
Read the full article here: http://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/4878962-province-balks-at-reviewing-act-that-governs-physician-s-conduct/