College of Physicians conscience rights policy amended
Friday, 19 September 2008
Written by Sheila Dabu, The Catholic Register,
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TORONTO - Even with a more toned down, less inflammatory policy on doctors' obligations, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons could pave the way for other regulatory bodies across Canada to disregard doctors’ religious and conscience rights with a document it adopted on Sept. 18, say Catholic groups.
The college amended its controversial Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code draft policy statement advising doctors that “there will be times when it may be necessary for physicians to set aside their personal beliefs in order to ensure that patients or potential patients are provided with the medical treatment and services they require” and that doctors who withhold certain medical services based on moral or religious belief may face a human rights complaint or professional misconduct charge.
Instead, the policy now states that doctors should “be aware that the Ontario Human Rights Commission or Tribunal may consider decisions to restrict medical services offered, to accept individuals as patients or to end physician-patient relationships, that are based on physicians’ moral or religious beliefs to be contrary to (Ontario’s Human Rights) Code.”
Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, said the decision could set a precedent elsewhere in Canada for other doctors' regulatory bodies.
“The support for freedom of religion and conscience is going to be needed more than ever before,” she said.
Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons spokesperson Karen Eby told The Catholic Register that the college didn't think there was anything controversial about their Ontario counterpart's policy. The Alberta college will be voting on a new standards of practice policy on Nov. 3. It is harmonizing its policies to fall in line with new provincial health legislation set to take effect next year.
Dr. Bill Pope, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Manitoba, told The Register that the Manitoba college approved a statement on discrimination and access on Sept. 19. Pope said he was unable to discuss the specific content of the policy until the policy is posted on the college's web site on Sept. 26 (after The Register's press time), but he said it includes issues related to doctors facing a full practice and how they would go about taking in new patients.
“You can't refuse a patient unnecessarily or if it's too complicated,” he said. “All colleges say you can't do things based upon discrimination.” This could includes religious grounds, Pope said.
As for the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons' new policy, Sean Murphy, administrator of the B.C.-based Conscience Project, said leaving in the section encouraging doctors to consider referring patients to someone else even though the service is something to which the doctor morally objects is just “window dressing.”
Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said he also sees a problem with this policy and its future implications.
“If euthanasia is to become legal, it is morally wrong to refer someone just because a patient would want it,” he said.
Currently, euthanasia is not legal in Canada. But there have been political efforts to get it legalized. Most recently, Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde introduced a private member's bill June 12 seeking to legalize euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.
Schadenberg said he doesn't understand the logic being applied by the college. It gives individuals autonomy over their own body, yet the college is trying to control the autonomy of doctors, he said.
The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons began revising its policy this summer to harmonize it with Ontario's Human Rights Code. It received more than 1,300 responses, many from Christian groups, doctors or individuals who objected to the college's position that doctors may have to check their moral or religious beliefs at the office door. On the other hand, some said the policy did not go far enough in ensuring the separation of the doctor's personal beliefs and their service to the public.
An Environics poll commissioned by the college said 85 per cent of those surveyed felt that doctors shouldn't be able to refuse to provide a medical service because the service conflicts with their moral or religious beliefs.
Dr. Preston Zuliani, chair of the college's executive committee, said during the Sept. 18 meeting there were misconceptions about the policy.
“Let me be very clear. It was never the intention of the draft policy or the college to compel physicians to do abortions,” he said.
He added that the college's policy was not taking away any of the doctors' rights.
“Physicians like any other member of society are entitled to religious and moral views which enrich many aspects of medicine. However, no right is absolute. There are two people in a doctor-patient relationship with potentially diverse views on many issues and both of these people have rights,” Zuliani said.
Dr. Will Johnston, president of Canadian Physicians for Life, said the college still expects doctors, regardless of whether they identify with a religion or not, to communicate other options to their patients, even if they object to these medical procedures based upon their personal beliefs.
Ontario doctors' main threat is the fact that their own college isn't standing up for their rights, Johnston said during a telephone interview from Vancouver.
Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott said the new policy shows how the college is being “bullied” by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
“We know full well that some of these human rights commissions have run amok in this country,” he said during a telephone interview from Saskatoon.
Vellacott introduced Bill C-537 on April 16 which seeks to protect health care workers' freedom of conscience.
Before the College's Sept. 18 meeting the Ontario Medical Association had criticized the draft policy, saying it should abandon it altogether, arguing that the policy “does not adequately inform physicians that their right to freedom of religion is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins said in a Sept. 12 statement that “For those who so generously devote their lives to the noble vocation of healing, ethical and religious convictions are not something optional or disconnected from the good they do.”
TORONTO - Even with a more toned down, less inflammatory policy on doctors' obligations, the 
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