reports from council
Council responds to Sexual
Abuse Task Force report
A
photos: D.W. Dorken
This is a brief
overview of the
discussions and
decisions made
at the September
Council meeting.
t its meeting, Council
discussed some of the
key recommendations
from the Minister of
Health and Long-Term Care’s
Sexual Abuse Task Force report,
which had just been released several
hours earlier.
The task force was given the
mandate to “examine the existing
legislative scheme under the RHPA
and provide advice and recommendations with respect to modernizing
and reinforcing the province’s ongoing commitment to a zero tolerance
policy for the sexual abuse of patients
by regulated health professionals.”
While Council fully supported or
supported in principle many of the
recommendations that could affect
this College, it did oppose a couple
of recommendations.
Most significantly, Council opposes the report’s recommendation
to remove from all health regulatory colleges their jurisdiction over
all responses to sexual abuse of
their members and move to a new
centralized agency/independent
body for public education and
complaints investigations.
Council believes that the College’s
extensive experience, grounded in
many years of investigating and
holding hearings into physician
sexual abuse, is too valuable to be
abandoned. “We do not believe
that the creation of a new agency
will result in a better experience
for patients or in better outcomes
for the public,” said Dr. Joel Kirsh,
College President.
Dr. Kirsh stated that instead we
should work with government and
our health-care partners to build on
and improve the existing legislative
and regulatory system to ensure
patients are protected from sexual
Issue 3, 2016 Dialogue
21