Doctors who commit abuse to face tougher sanctions
Alberta doctors who commit sexual violations will be met with harsher disciplinary action, including increased efforts to have serious offenders permanently banned from practising medicine, the province’s regulator says.
A new mandate to seek “stricter sanctions” was approved Friday by the council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, which said the move was necessary, in part, to reflect society’s hardening attitudes toward sexual misbehaviour.
“Society and our profession have evolved over time to more clearly understand the devastating impact on patients of sexual abuse by health-care professionals,” said a statement of principles adopted by college council.
The policy change was partly sparked by outrage over the college’s handing of the case of Dr. Ismail Taher, an Edmonton family physician whose medical licence was recently restored despite two sexual assault convictions for inappropriately touching a patient and a nurse.
The college said its ability to discipline Taher was constrained by case law, and that attempts to stray from established precedents would likely be overturned on appeal.
Although Taher’s reinstatement came with conditions — including that he use a chaperone when seeing female patients — the decision prompted a strong reaction from patients and from Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, who suggested the college might not have all the tools it needs to deliver tougher sanctions.
After further reflection and consultation with lawyers, the college decided it could at least try to push ahead with harsher penalties, spokesman Steve Buick said Monday.
“We are saying to public and to government, ‘We hear you. You want higher penalties and we will seek them,’” Buick said.
The new approach applies to any doctor found to have engaged in any kind sexual misconduct.
In practice, Buick said violations that previously resulted in a licence suspension of a few months could now be targeted for a much longer suspension.
In cases of doctors convicted of sexual assault — particularly those found to have violated a patient — the college’s complaints director is likely to seek a permanent ban on that physician’s medical licence.
Buick said the college’s hearing tribunals must remain free to handle each case as they see fit. And tribunal rulings can be appealed to the courts, which also act independently. In addition, the college’s council also approved new measures to improve transparency. Among the changes, public notices of upcoming hearings will include more detailed information on the specific charges against physicians, rather than just the generic “unprofessional conduct.”
As well, a doctor’s discipline history posted online will go back 10 years instead of the current five years.
Hoffman characterized the college’s moves as a positive step.
She said her ministry is collaborating with the college on further changes, including a tweak to the Health Professions Act to allow disclosure of infractions from other jurisdictions that occurred before a doctor’s arrival in Alberta.