Doctors series is alarming
Re Medical disorder series, May 1
The Star investigation regarding performance records for doctors is a sterling piece of research and writing.
The reports raise questions. Why is it necessary for Ontario patients to turn to the Star for information about medical performance? Why must Ontario patients rely on foreign jurisdictions for information about safe access to Ontario licenced doctors? And why, in a country with federal health care, do patients from one province have more secure access to medical performance than others?
The Star investigation reveals threatening lapses in providing safe access to medical care. The detail is startling, full of hiding behind privacy rules at the expense of patient safety. It is nothing more than luck that more serious damage has not happened. And we all know about luck — it eventually runs out. Is our medical assurance part of the Ontario gaming corporation?
Please ask each candidate wanting to be our next premier what action will they take to ensure Ontario patients have secure information to make sound decisions about who looks afters us. Don Graves, Burlington Kudos to the Star investigative team that dug up the dirty secrets of Canadian-trained doctors who returned to practice in Canada despite their sordid history of disciplinary action and malpractice payouts in the U.S.
Sadly, our broken system of checks and balances allowed them to keep their history secret.
The year-long project by the Star, which painstakingly collected MD rosters from medical regulators in all 50 U.S. states and 13 Canadian provinces and territories, yielded rich dividends.
It is shocking that the number of flagrant crimes committed by these devious doctors did not prevent them from practising under the radar in Canada, often because they dodged the authorities by simply moving from one jurisdiction to another.
When a physician is deemed guilty of professional misconduct in the U.S., the Federation of State Medical Boards enters the decision into a central repository. Canadian provinces urgently need such co-ordination and oversight.
Despite these concerns, it is comforting to know that the vast majority of doctors in North America live up to the high standards of their profession.
However, it was concerning to learn from Teresa Boyle’s article that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, responsible for dispensing disciplinary action, is currently swamped by a glut of trivial complaints that make it extremely difficult to adjudicate more serious violations and render decisions in a timely manner.
It is time for Canadian government and health-care stakeholders to come together to save lives. Rudy Fernandes, Mississauga As a physician, I was disappointed at the timing of your series about bad doctors. May 1 is Doctor’s Day in Ontario. In our profession, it represents a rare opportunity to step back from the frantic pace and often deep sadness inherent to our life’s work. Amidst the suffering, death and endless hours in an overwhelmed and underfunded healthcare system, it can sometimes be difficult to remember how important it is to continue fighting.
Following the horrific attack in Toronto last month, Doctor’s Day was an especially salient reminder of the tragic, yet heroic work many of us do every day.
There is no question there are bad doctors among us. The Star’s investigation into the unspeakable crimes committed by some physicians against vulnerable patients is important, necessary work, and it should be commended. But on behalf of the many thousands of compassionate, dedicated and exhausted doctors struggling to keep Canadians healthy, might I gently suggest that May 1 was not the day. Dr. Richard Osborne, Credit Valley Hospital, Mississauga Re Physician college clogged by cases, May 1 To condone that more complaints against our doctors should be outright dismissed would be a colossal failure of a system marketed as accountability, oversight and protection of the public.
Recently, my family received notice that our second appeal of a College of Physicians and Surgeons decision had failed. As reported in the Star in June 2014, my father Michael Green died in August 2013 after a minor elective procedure.
Our family decided to file a complaint, as we believed then, and remain convinced today, that it reasonably appears to have been a fatally wrong decision by his doctors that precipitated the stroke that led to his death.
However, despite the unfavorable and unpalatable outcome that we experienced, to further erode an already questionable, unwelcoming, unbalanced, broken system and condone the dismissal of legitimate complaints, sometimes against doctors who already have a history with the medical-safety regulator, would in no manner serve the public, and would instead do grave harm to public confidence.
That a retired judge suggests saving money is the solution to an overworked system misses the forest for the trees. Jeff Green, Toronto Good luck complaining about your doctor. It may take six months to have your issue addressed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
And if that’s not bad enough, figures from three years ago indicate provincial governments were funding the legal defence of doctors to the tune of $200 million per year.
If that’s still not bad enough, the provincial government reimburses membership fees paid by doctors to the Canadian Medical Protective Association, the legal insurer to doctors.
For doctors, it doesn’t get much better: we pay them to practice, we pay to defend their malpractice and, to top it all off, any malfeasance is zealously guarded in secrecy by the College.
All of it stinks. Why is this not a provincial-election issue? Tibor Szakall, Thornhill
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