Regulator flooded with complaints over doctors advocating gun control
Posted Mar 8, 2019 11:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO — Ontario’s medical regulator says it has received dozens of complaints in the last month over doctors advocating for gun control.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario says it cannot confirm the content of the nearly 70 complaints received nor which physicians are named.
But a group of doctors pushing for a national ban on privately owned handguns and assault weapons says one of its leaders is the main target.
The group Doctors for Protection from Guns says most if not all the complaints are about Dr. Najma Ahmed, a Toronto trauma surgeon who treated victims of a fatal mass shooting last summer.
Another organization, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, has urged its supporters to file complaints about Ahmed with the college, arguing physicians should not take political positions.
In a tweet last month, one of the coalition’s staff members said she was submitting a complaint because it is “immoral” for a doctor to use her influence for political purposes.
The college, meanwhile, said Friday a committee is reviewing the complaints and will determine whether to investigate further or designate them as “frivolous and vexatious.”
“The CPSO’s legislated complaints process is generally intended to focus on clinical care or professional behaviour,” the college’s registrar, Nancy Whitmore, said in a statement.
“The CPSO’s role is not to resolve political disagreements when clinical care/outcomes or professional conduct is not in question. We recognize that physicians can play an important role by advocating for system-level change in a socially accountable manner.”
Whitmore also expressed concerns that complaints about political issues could divert resources from examining complaints related to clinical care.
The Canadian Press
