NL physicians lose core right of self-regulation

Changes reflect dysfunction at College beyond current doctor shortage

“We want to give the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons] the tools to do their job in a more efficient way,”  Premier Andrew Furey told reporters a couple of weeks ago.

Furey said there were problems with the rules not the College’s governing council. The rules affected doctors coming from outside Canada to practice here.

“We want to kind of eliminate those barriers so that physicians who want to come here on a temporary basis, on a permanent basis, can have a more efficient way to have their licence recognized.”

If you didn’t know anything about the way medical licensing works, you might have thought that sounded sensible and conciliatory.

Premier Andrew Furey, circa 2014

What Furey said made no sense. Under the Medical Act, 2011, the College’s council set the rules Furey had a problem with.  The Council could change the rules to fix all the problems Furey may have had.

While he may not have said so, Furey did have a problem with the Council.  That’s why Bill Number 1 passed last week in the House fundamentally changed the system of medical licencing that’s been in place in this province since 1893.  One way or another, the minister of health now decides the qualifications needed to practice medicine in the Newfoundland and Labrador.

The changes also went much farther than merely tweaking a few rules for doctors from outside Canada who tried to practice here.  The government introduced new categories of license for types of medical doctors that currently don’t exist in the province.  There’s no clear indication of what they will do and how they differ from other kinds of doctors.

At the same time, the government stripped the requirement for doctors to meet Canadian standards to hold a licence in Newfoundland and Labrador. This was unnecessary and may cause bigger problems.