The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) continues to pursue disciplinary proceedings against three Ontario doctors for providing vaccine exemption letters and making allegedly “misleading” statements questioning the health benefits of CPSO policy on COVID-19.
For Dr. Trozzi, it all comes down to following the golden rule of doing no harm, and the Hippocratic oath to uphold the medical profession’s ethical standards. The ethical practice of medicine is simply the non-negotiable means and end of being a real doctor. For Dr. Crystal Luchkiw, the ethical and effective practice of medicine depends upon doctors’ freedom to make independent clinical judgments based on the doctor’s knowledge of both the relevant medical domain and the patient’s unique needs. It is imperative that such judgements proceed from both expertise and cornerstone medical fundamentals, and that they be exercised free from any and all coercive external interference.
Now clearly, there is tremendous irony in this concession. The hearing panel has essentially exonerated all three doctors by admitting that the CPSO’s COVID-19 restrictions are recommendations that do not have the force of law and are not mandatory. At the same time, the panel refused to dismiss the CPSO’s disciplinary proceedings against the three doctors, and their licences to practice medicine remain suspended.
As Dr. Phillips has explained, what he and his two colleagues are facing in the ongoing litigation with the CPSO should be of major concern to all Ontarians and to all Canadians. What is at issue is, firstly, the right of all Canadians to receive personalized medical advice, treatment, and care; secondly, who determines the nature of that care; and thirdly, what advice and opinions medical doctors can express privately to patients and publicly to their communities. By depriving physicians of the freedom to treat and to communicate with patients in accordance with their medical experience and expertise and knowledge of individual patients’ needs, the CPSO effectively prohibits the basis for informed consent and compels patients to accept whatever advice is promoted by the CPSO in lieu of proper personalized care.
The threat to doctors Luchkiw, Phillips, and Trozzi’s continued medical practice constitutes a real crisis in Canadian medicine that needs to be addressed immediately. The crux of the problem is that the colleges have been given virtually unlimited power to investigate, discipline and de-licence doctors. Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” This section of the charter should protect Canadian citizens from both investigations that are unconstrained by fact-based allegations, and from punishments being imposed before the allegations have been determined. Contrary to common sense, however, courts have ruled that section 7 does not apply to investigations related to professional licences. Alarmingly, this restriction of section 7 rights and freedoms grants regulatory bodies like the CPSO unreasonably broad powers to investigate and to suspend medical practice licences prior to a hearing. As Dr. Phillips writes, this means that the College “can charge anyone for absolutely anything and get away with it.”
Indeed, it seems highly questionable whether the CPSO panel acted in good faith during the hearing. To wit, the panel refused even to address the three doctors’ key submissions that the CPSO Registrar, Dr. Nancy Whitmore, “did not have reasonable and probable ground to order [their] investigations [... and that] the College ... failed to establish that [they] had violated a standard of practice.” Quite frankly, to ignore these submissions has all the earmarks of hubristic folly, appearing contrary to the principles of fundamental justice and the spirit of law in Canada. Dr. Phillips expressed the matter succinctly when he tweeted, “In a free and democratic society, citizens are protected from laws that are so broad you can’t know if you’re violating them beforehand.”
Discussions of legal proceedings rarely make for good reading. The plodding pace of legal arguments and the barrier posed by technical vocabulary inevitably get in the way of visceral understanding. That’s why it’s absolutely essential that, in closing, we return to the fundamental issues. Crystal Luchkiw, Patrick Phillips, and Mark Trozzi have lost their licences, their careers are under threat, and their lives are being marred by the unpleasant necessity of enormously costly ongoing legal battles. The personal cost they are paying is no laughing matter, but that personal cost is not what’s driving them, and it’s not where the gravity of this situation lies. These doctors are fighting for the right to care for their patients in the best way they know how, as determined by their medical knowledge and the individual needs of each individual patient.
“Countless patients have needlessly died from COVID while being denied early treatments with life-saving medications. Countless patients have been deprived of informed consent around the risks of vaccines. Countless patients were denied exemptions even though they had horrendous adverse events after the first dose. Countless patients have been forced to take genetic therapy against their will and many of those patients have died or been maimed by that therapy.”
Dr. Phillips, for one, has had enough–in view of the terrible harms associated with the CPSO’s unchecked power over medical care throughout the declared pandemic, he is calling for a “complete dismantlement of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario” and the subsequent creation of a new college, “one with leaders who respect the rule of law“ and whose power is “limited to prosecutions of offences that are in line with the charter and protect the rights of all.”
