By Doug Draper
The association representing hospitals across Ontario is reportedly drafting “bylaws aimed at gagging any right doctors may still have to speak out publicly about hospital affairs in their communities.
“The Ontario Hospital Association’s unilateral move to reign in (doctors) has escalated tensions with doctors, who say the bylaws are an attempt to muzzle any criticism of management and give them less say in decisions while increasing the powers of (a hospital system’s) chief executive officer,” reads a front-page story in the May 12 edition of The Globe and Mail.
The story goes on to report that “failure to comply with the new bylaws can be grounds to suspend a doctor’s hospital privileges,” which include doctors’ rights to access hospital resources, admit patients and provide clinical services.
Isn’t this great! As if we don’t have enough chaos and turmoil around hospital services in regions like Niagara now, here we have this association encouraging hospital boards across the province to pass what is, in effect, a gag order on our doctors.
And why would you need a gag order on doctors unless hospital boards and administrators have something to hide or some reason to worry that they are not in a position to effectively defend themselves against any comment or criticism doctors may make publicly? Is their standing in the community already that weak or fragile that it can’t survive a doctor speaking out?
That may very well be so, especially in regions like Niagara where the board and administrators for the NHS have lost the confidence of countless thousands of residents. And that is certainly the case in the southern tier of Niagara where many have said publicly that they feel they are being regarded as second- and third-class citizens while all the focus is on building that big, honking hospital palace for the future in north Niagara.
A number of doctors across the Niagara region, including a critical mass of them in Niagara Falls, have at one time or another spoken out publicly or signed petitions that advocated for that new hospital to be located at a more central site in Niagara. Doctors in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Niagara Falls and Welland – in particular – have also publicly expressed their concerns about reductions in emergency and other services.
In my more than 30 years as a journalist in this region, my experience has been that doctors, by nature, are not ones to get up on any kind of soap box. They just want to do their job. The fact that we have seen so many of them speak out in recent years may say far more about the state of our hospitals under the administration of the Niagara Health System than it does about doctors suddenly wanting to make any kind of trouble by voicing their views publicly about the status of our health care.
Just a few final thoughts from this commentator before I hope you share your views with our growing thousands of visitors to Niagara At Large.
I believe that one of the reasons hospital administrators want to gag doctors is that they know damn well that when doctors take out time from their busy practices to speak out, there concerns carry a good deal of weight with the public. It is one thing when other concerned members of the community speak out about a restructuring or reduction in services in their community. The administrators can always make belittling or condescending comments to media people like me (as the NHS has) that these people are just being “emotional” because they fear change. It is a little harder to react in that kind of condescending way with a doctor.
Finally, I doubt that the provincial government will step in and stop of the Ontario Hospital Foundation and hospital boards across the province not to move forward with these hospitals. That is because to the extent the province is complicit in the bad decisions of hospital boards (i.e. – where to put a new hospital complex in Niagara and closures of emergency and other services at community hospital sites), it stands to gain by shutting doctors up too.
You can try finding the entire Globe article by clicking on the following link – www.theglobeandmail.com and clicking in the words ‘doctors fear new hospital bylaws will keep them silent’ in that paper’s search engine.
In the meantime, visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on our hospitals services and other matters of concern and interest to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.
Niagara At Large 
I encourage the Doctors to speak out for what is right. The people of Fort Erie and Pt. Colborne have not been treated equally and do not have adequate health care for their tax dollars. When the Doctors speak up and join the people perhaps we will see more done to help us in this CRISIS!!
Is it true that Doctors are being flown in from the the Bahamas and Nova Scotia and other provinces to fill the vacancies caused by the NHS & LHIN ?? A Dr. from the Bahamas in the Fort Erie Urgent Care Centre said she flies in once a month to take up duties because there are not enough Dr.’s. What is all this about??How foolish it is to believe that there are not enough Doctors!! The charade continues with every segment of the health system buckling under their self inflicted mandates. anne
LikeLike
I believe the major point is being missed. In order to stop the Doctors from speaking out we the patients (potential) will not and can not be admitted to a hospital by our Doctor for the use of any machine, that will help determine the problem, or get the treatment required. We paid for the machinery. We pay for the hospital and the upkeep. We paay for the latest type of machine etc. and because we happen to have a free speech Doctor WE are the ones that are to be punished. I applaud Any doctor that will speak his/her mind on any issue even if I totally disagree with him/her. This is Hitler-type thinking (no free thoughts or speech).
LikeLike
The CEO of the OHA, Tom Closson has many faces , he is a Health Care CONSULTANT, he also has been, according to newspaper accounts. in negotiations with Kalaida Hospital System in Buffalo regarding Canadian Patient care in Buffalo.
and now he again has his oar in the murky waters
of PRIVATIZATION. Where the hell does this Liberal Gang find these ass…….After eHealth you would think they might learn but then I guess McGuinty has to look after his future after politics??? The sooner the better.
LikeLike
The head of OHA facilitating hospital CEO’s in muzzling doctors? Done deed. It’s getting to be a ‘brave new world’ all over. Doctors lost ‘control’ in the Medicare system long ago. Now they’re about to lose any influence within it too, at least in hospitals. This news will likely be greeted with indifference by a public that perceives doctors only as self-serving and no longer as the kindly voice in the best interest of individual patients let alone what may be good for the whole system. Nurses now, as always, are generally seen as the kindly health care professionals. They all play the role and a few speak out. But most doctors and nurses are self-muzzled – at least in Niagara. As a point of interest, over the years, doctors voluntarily restricted themselves. They wanted to be seen publicly as having one voice only. So, individual doctors who spoke out (or simply spoke publicly) were chastised by their own licensing body. The only doctor allowed to make public announcements outside of the OMA or the College was the Medical Officer of Health in connection with epidemics, public safety and so on. Hospital CEO’s? As it’s said: power corrupts, etc…
LikeLike
What Country do we live in anyway? Dictatorship runs rampant in the Health Care System in Niagara. The people most effected by all this bullshit are the patients and potential patients. Why is the NHS fearful that the Doctors will disrupt their effort to destroy what little Health Care we have left. I for one fear having to go to the Hospitals in the Niagara Region. We have lost ER’s in Fort Erie, Port Colborne and have been converted to UCC’s. The people of Southern Niagara deserve the quality of health care that we are entitled to. The NHS is telling us that we must travel out of Town and we should accept that we will still be getting the best health care available, GIVE ME A BRAKE. If this is the case I invite the NHS, the LHIN’s, to move to Fort Erie or Port Colborne and should their family members require medical care will they accept having to travel 25 minutes under normal driving conditions, and longer in winter months when Fort Erie Highways are closed due to snow storms. I invite the Minister of Health Deb Matthews to come to Fort Erie, meet with the Yellow Shirt Brigade and take a tour around our Town and speak to the people about their fear of not having our ER anymore. I challenge the Minister of Health to come to Fort Erie and tell the people why we are better off not having our ER. Living in fear because we are not able to get quality health care in our own Town is wrong.
Donna Frankson
LikeLike
For many months during the time the NHS was implementing the Hospital Improvement Plan doctors of every discipline were calling thier elected officials, both provincial and municipal for help in the fight against the changes being proposed.
As a council member in Niagara Falls I can personally attest to the fact that the majority of doctors that called me asked that thier names be kept confidential as they were being threatened with sanctions by the NHS administration if they spoke out. The administration denied this at the time.
If this asinine attempt to gag our physicians proves anything, it is that our doctors concerns were valid. As a member of our city’s Doctor Recruitement Committee I can only imagine what this type of bylaw will do to ensure that the shortage of Physicians in Ontario only gets worse. If you listen closely you will hear the sounds of doctors office doors slamming closed as the mass exodus to practise medicine anywhere but here begins.
LikeLike
Heil Sevenpifer! Heil Gledhill! Vee must goose step in line! Not far off the mark. The main reasons I gave up my nursing license are 1) The decay of the local (and provincial) health systems rendered me, as a nurse, unable to do the job for which I was trained. You cannot give proper care to people sequestered in closets and storage rooms and in busy hallways and with impossible workloads. 2) The increased paperwork (to cover the asses of the higher ups and give the hospital a good name with accreditation authorities who care more about that kind of thing than actual patient care) which also took you away from patients. For example, my own mother was in hospital about 2 hours during which I noticed on her completed admission papers – a big necessity according to the paper pushers – that she had a BM that day, had family support, and was coping well with her illness, but she was basically dead. These dumb questions were what she spent the last hour of her life answering while she circled the drain – not the nurses’ fault but the pencil pushers who make such things priorities over care! 3) The embarrassment and humiliation I felt when being accosted by angry people waiting too long when they truly should not have to. The anger I felt myself when people who needed care had to wait and suffer longer than necessary. If that is what nursing has become, it’s time to leave. I’m too old for that kind of stress. Besides, if I had a stress induced heart attack, there is no longer a hospital within a reasonable drive for me. I wouldn’t make it! 4) The biggest reason – I could not criticize the NHS or I would have been escorted off the property as has been done with humiliating effect to some staff.
Health care in Canada is becoming big corporate business. Businesses make profits. That’s great in industry (although lots of little guys end up losing their jobs and factories are concentrated in mega conglomerates while peripheral areas are shut down – sound familiar NHS?). The difference is:
PEOPLE ARE NOT PRODUCTS!!!!!
We cannot run hospitals like industries which are exactly what is happening to the detriment of the citizenry.
Nurses and doctors know this but if they speak out they are quite effectively punished. I have heard absolute horror stories from cohorts who are still on the job but cannot repeat them for fear they lose their jobs. Maybe it’s time for a general strike of all doctors and nurses except for emergency care. Eight hours should do it . Let’s see how well the administrators can take care of the patients. They do claim, after all, to know what’s best for everyone! Of course they rely on the ethics (which the administrators seem to lack) of the medical personel as insurance that such a thing would never happen. Perhaps it’s time for a wake up call by OMA and ONA to these fascist demagogues.
LikeLike
Thankyou to our Doctors , to our Nurses and to our Politicians who are willing to speak the truth of the demise of adequate Health Care in Niagara.
It is with your voice and your support that reform of the Administration of NHS will finally become a reality.
When hand-picked Board members by Debbie Sevenpifer truly become representatives from our communities there will be an opportunity for reform,,,until then we are at their mercy with no appeal process except the continuing voices of opposition from the oppressed communities.
The Yellow Shirt Brigade has vowed to fight on until equal and accessible Health Care has been restored.
LikeLike
Let’s hope they will never be able to muzzle some of our brave, courageous doctors like Dr. Offierski, who years ago insisted ….the new hospital to be built in Niagara should be built in the geographic centre of the region…close to 406 and 20, where it would be equitable to all the citizens of Niagara. This would be the specialty hospital and would allow the other surrounding community hospitals to be downsized…more economical to run, but still be there to look after the sick and dying of their community. The NHS chose to ignore him. If they had listened, we would not be in this chaotic mess.
I trust our doctors far more than the NHS.
LikeLike
What is this province coming to? What happened to free speech? The NHS truly is a mess, and isn’t about to be fixed if it won’t listen to the people in the know such as our doctors and nurses. The system is rapidly getting worse by the day, and now our doctors can’t even talk about it? What a disgrace! What really stinks is that the province throws money left right and centre to everywhere but health care.
LikeLike