Sexual abuse initiative
Sexual Abuse
Initiative:
A Summary
Over the past year, Council has proposed a number of changes – both to the legislation which
governs us, and to our own processes and practices – to better protect and support Ontario
patients from physician sexual abuse.
Some of the changes to our
own processes include:
aking enhancements to a
m
program that provides funding for therapy/counselling
to survivors of sexual abuse
committed by physicians;
aving all physical sexual contact
h
between a physician and a patient result in mandatory revocation of a physician’s certificate of
registration;
c ontinuing efforts to
improve investigative
timelines for sexual abuse;
expanding mandatory revocation
in circumstances where physicians are found to have engaged
in other specified acts of professional misconduct – such as being
convicted of a specific criminal
sexual offence or engaging in
sexual impropriety with a patient
under the age of 16;
a dopting a framework for
guiding decisions to accept or order gender-based
restrictions on a physician’s
certificate;
implementing a new
internal policy on reporting
information to the Police;
nhancing the informae
tion and resources on the
College’s website regarding
sexual abuse;
c ontinuing work in relation
to Education and Training for
different audiences, including College committees,
the profession and medical
students.
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Council has also directed that the following amendments be made to
strengthen sexual abuse provisions in the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991:
providing patients with a guaranteed right to communicate the impact of abuse on them by submitting victim impact statements to
the Discipline Committee following a greater range of professional
misconduct findings;
increasing protection for the privacy interest of witnesses involved in
discipline cases by raising the legal
threshold for the production and
disclosure of confidential records of
a patient not in the possession of
the College;
aving the voices of patients heard
h
in more cases by guaranteeing
their right to make submissions to
the Discipline Committee pr [܈ [