A February 2010 Court of Appeal decision means that dentists who have as patients their spouses or significant others could be charged with sexual abuse and lose their licences for a minimum five years, writes the Toronto Star’s Theresa Boyle. It all stems from a zero-tolerance policy toward doctor-patient sexual relationships laid out in the Health Professions Procedural Code of Ontario’s Regulated Health Professions Act, which applies to dentists and other health professionals.
The Appeals Court decision in Leering v. College of Chiropractors of Ontario overruled a lower court judgment that had in turn struck down a ruling by the discipline committee of the College of Chiropractors against a Waterloo chiropractor who treated his live-in partner. The question at issue was whether the partner was an actual “patient” of the chiropractor, or whether the medical treatments were merely “incidental.”
In the decision, Justice Katherine N. Feldman writes:
I conclude that the Divisional Court erred in law by imposing on a discipline committee the obligation to inquire into whether the sexual relationship of the parties arose out of their spousal relationship or their doctor-patient relationship in order to determine whether there was sexual abuse. The Code requires no such inquiry. The Divisional Court found the discipline committee’s finding of sexual abuse unreasonable because it did not apply that test and did not look at the College’s policy documents when assessing the issue. In my view, the discipline committee made no error in its interpretation or application of the Code, nor is there any basis to find its decision unreasonable.
Boyle writes that, by siding with the discipline committee’s decision to revoke the chiropractor’s licence, the Appeals Court also negated a 1995 letter of exemption regarding treatment by dentists of spouses and romantic partners, which was sent to the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario by the province’s health minister at the time.
Dentists have subsequently been venting publicly about the situation — protesting the ruling and declaring the law “stupid.” Current Health Minister Deb Matthews told the Star that the situation is being reviewed.
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