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APPEAL PROCESS
APPEALS STRENGTHEN THE REGULATORY SYSTEM
The College’ s Complaints, Accreditation and Registration Committees each make decisions about individual member matters. Under the Veterinarians Act, these decisions can be appealed to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board( HPARB). HPARB is a third-party appeal mechanism that allows the parties involved in these matters( applicants, licensed members, facility directors, and complainants) to appeal a decision where they are not happy with the outcome.
The College works hard to ensure that all of our processes are fair, transparent, objective and impartial, but it is essential for procedural fairness to have another party who can review decisions when necessary. This system provides accountability to the College’ s decision-making and allows individuals a right to a“ second opinion”. HPARB also reviews complaints and registration decisions for all of the regulated health professions in Ontario, 28 Colleges in all. HPARB determines if the College’ s decisions are reasonable and ensures adequate information has been collected to support the decisions that are being made.
The College is supportive of this appeal process. All parties deserve the right to appeal when they do not agree with an outcome. This accountability leads to a strong committee review system built upon fair practices and reasonability in decision making.
The College’ s decisions are generally upheld at HPARB. From 2014 to 2016, no Complaints Committee decisions were returned to the College by HPARB. However, when decisions are not upheld, the College seeks to learn from these decisions and apply these learnings to future case reviews. In the last year, the College has had a few decisions returned for further review. The reasons for returned decisions have been varied and include:
• HPARB was concerned that a decision used very serious language when discussing the case, but that the Committee only gave the veterinarian advice on what learnings would be helpful rather than requiring remediation. This links to our legislative reform initiatives and the inclusion of the ability to require remedial activities in cases that are not serious enough for a discipline referral, but where remediation would best protect the public and help the veterinarian not land in a similar circumstance in the future. The College does not currently have the power to do this in less serious cases.
• Another case was returned indicating the College had not disclosed the full complaints file to the veterinarian. Case law has recently changed in this area and such disclosure is now required. The case in question was completed just prior to the College making this procedural change. In fact, the College’ s process had already changed prior to the College receiving the HPARB decision indicating the process could be improved.
• In both a registration decision and a complaints decision, parties provided additional information during the appeal process after a matter had been reviewed by Committee. In these cases, the matters were returned to the Committees for review with the further information provided for their consideration.
The College continues to refine our processes and policies based on evolving case law and procedural fairness best practices. Our appeals data is shared publicly in our annual report.
UPDATE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND VETERINARY MEDICINE
The Office of Medical Cannabis has confirmed that the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations do not apply to veterinarians or animals; the regulations pertain to human healthcare practitioners and access for human patients only.
Much of the focus for veterinarians has been on the use of cannabidiol( CBD), specifically CBD oil. Both cannabis and cannabidiol are Schedule II drugs under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. As veterinarians are included in the definition of practitioner in this Act, veterinarians would be permitted to prescribe either substance if there was a legal pathway to do so. There are currently no approved CBD products for animals.
It is not enough that CBD oil or related
products may be offered through a licensed supplier in Canada – the supplier must also be supplying a CBD product that is approved by Health Canada. Manufacturers would need to complete the approval process to get such a product approved for use in animals.
Animal owners may ask their veterinarians about using products for their animals that contain active ingredients found in the cannabis plant. It is important that the public is aware that:
• There is currently no legal pathway for veterinarians in Ontario to prescribe medical marijuana to animals.
• There are currently no CBD products approved by Health Canada and therefore no legal pathway to obtain these products.
Health Canada can be contacted for additional information on cannabis or CBD products, or on the approval process for products for animals. For more information, contact the Veterinary Drugs Directorate at Health Canada.
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