MD discipline panned for length, expense

is going to lead to delay,” said Harte. “Should the public be providing legal aid to doctors for complaints to an administrative body? … Any time you have a resource you don’t pay for, that resource tends to be overutilized.”

He believes that barring doctors from CMPA coverage for college cases is one way to speed up the discipline process and encourage doctors to improve their work.

The province has also voiced concern about the rising cost of subsidizing doctors’ liability coverage.

The college received an average of 2,412 complaints a year from 2010 to 2014, almost 50 a week, according to Goudge’s report.

Ontario has 40 per cent of the country’s doctors, but 50 per cent of the discipline cases, which absorb more than 60 per cent of the CMPA’s lawyer hours for such issues, he noted.

Even the one quarter of cases dealt with the most rapidly took an average of 97 days to close in the period Goudge studied. The average time for all cases until a decision by the investigation committee — the first stage of the complaint process — was 200 days.

Goudge pointed to Alberta’s college as a model.

As in that province, an advocate who works with patients from the time they file a complaint could help explain whether a grievance fits into the college’s mandate or should be handled elsewhere.

Goudge also recommended that a college official be designated to dismiss any complaints lacking foundation early in the process, and an alternative dispute resolution — or mediation — system that could settle cases without lengthy investigation.

Goudge’s report was submitted to the Ontario government in February of 2016 but was kept under wraps until Monday, when the Health Ministry posted it online.

Laura Gallant, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Helena Jaczek, said some of the recommendations were included in a broader bill last year on health-care regulation.

The fate of the rest of his advice is now up in the air until at least June 7, when an election could usher in a new Ontario government.