Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 21, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba 4 Winnipeg free january patients Are Quick to complain when they think doctors dont meet their the College of physicians and surgeons of Manitoba complaints committee says the beefs usually Centre on office emergency Ward disputes and medical a september committee report to the College Drew up a list of abcs on Good behaviour and criticized doctors for late Sloppy paperwork and rude it didst lambaste physicians who charge More than the professional guideline for uninsured services such As medical the committee said such fees should not be charged Advance and patients should be told if there going to be the committee highlighted four areas of conflict Between doctors and but didst offer any not getting care it said patients who go to crowded Hospital emergency wards Arent receiving the care they it also said patients want perfection from plastic especially if the operation is not covered by Rural Manitoban dislike re Gion Alired health care and want their doctors to be available 24 hours a the committee and families want to see their severely ill or dying relatives get better under a doctors heres what happens to com plaints about doctors d the complaint must be written before it is considered formally by the which is Why Only one tenth of the annual phone complaints Ever make it into the d the first and last Stop for most problems is the complaints com which meets monthly to review up to 20 beefs at a last it considered 193 139 of them filed in if the committee sees a serious disciplinary the com plaint goes to the investigative three of the 193 complaints were referred last d the a doctor appointed As the colleges has extensive Powers under Manito Bas medical including the right to subpoena a physicians he also has the Power to recommend rehabilitation or no action against a if the chairman Calls for charges of professional misconduct under the the doctor receives either a formal censure or a formal in p censure Means a Black Mark is entered on a doctors file in lieu of to 11 is not consid ered an admission of d if there is an a doctor becomes a defendant before a be three member tribunal drawn from an appointed inquiry committee conduct is reviewed and wit ii esses Are heard by the committee i to establish his Standard of prac the committee is a quasi Judi Cial panel and an inquiry is a formal guided by Canadas evidence the Case is argued by a prosecutor who is a lawyer hired by the held in camera such inquiries Are held inca Era and witnessed Only by those deemed by the act to have an interest in the outcome a court the the inquiry their respective lawyers and the patients have no standing at in quiries and its up to the College whether they Are called to Tes verdicts Are based on a Stan Dard somewhere Between civil a balance of probabilities and the criminal lest of reasonable no no Tiv of a hearing is made in order to protect the privacy of the defendants Ami the ill if found the doctor faces a Range of including publication of his payment of inquiry costs and the temporary or permanent loss of his licence to practise of the three inquiries last no licences were revoked or us one Case was adjourned a doctor gave up his practice in the second Case and in the the doctors patient Load was pared Cornola Nants Are unhappy with the they can Appeal to court of Queens o if the investigative chairman refers a Case for remedial doctors drawn from a standing audit committee swoop Down on a doctors practice to conduct a Clin ical assessment and the auditors then order new rules of which May in clude specific refresher disciplinary style tarnishing image continued from Page 1 on trial is a doctor charged with misconduct under the Manitoba medical act and the complainant is a two fellow doctors and a Layman Are the most witnesses also doctors who police other doctors admit the professions disciplinary methods Are tarnishing its once Pristine weve gotten Calls where peo ple Start out saying i dont know Why in calling says Ken registrar of the col lege of physicians and say i know that youre not going to do anything because youll All cover up for each on the at patients have reason to doubt the use of Challenge doctors treatment or the College Only body with the Legal right to strip doctors of their licence to practise gets an average of Calls a about 200 of these Are accepted As formal beefs by the colleges disciplinary the com plaints Only a handful go any in just three out of 193 complaints were considered Seri Ous enough to go to the investigative chairman a doctor who acts As the colleges none have yet gone on to a formal although hearings were held in another three cases left Over from previous patients cant confront their doctors at any time in the com plaints process and have no Legal right to sit through an inquiry they Are considered Only As witnesses in the colleges action against the As they have no Legal right to counsel although the College insists it would not refuse a complainants request to have a lawyer there Are lots of examples of How the College system its monthly newsletter reported last july that a Rural doctor was stripped of his right to prescribe narcotics after two Middle aged patients committed the criticized for miss ing his patients suicidal warning want named or identified by age or neither were the no formal inquiry asked for details on the the registrar James Morison cited College he said he did not want to review the files for the free the doctors name was kept secret because the Case never made it to a formal so no guilty verdict was but Brown argues that even this system is More open than it used to until three years de tails of cases and names of offend ers were never even if there was a finding of in the we have tended not to publish with one exception if there was an agreement with the defendant at the time of he including countless lawyers whole seen the system from the insist the doctors Are tougher on themselves than Iwone else would but they concede the Public is its also bad says Catherine of Mcmaster University Centre for health economics and policy standards of care Are jeopardized by a disciplinary system that relies on patient she said in a recent paper on medical policing practices across it assumes that unless someone nothing is bad apples will stand out if a complaint is but what about the rest do we assume they must be providing Quality health care she even if one agreed in principle that a complaints pro Gram could guarantee Public current activities Are rulings on complaints Are based on subjective judgments with Little reference to scientific Litera Ture and the same criticism applies to pharma nurses and optometrists across the Fooks that May All be on the verge of Radical in a constitutional Chal Lenge by a newspaper forced that provinces physician body to open up a disciplinary hearing for the first time last in the secrecy Rule is not required by statute based solely on a College and the possibility that Manito Bas hearings could also violate the charter of rights and free Doms that the province could pry them open by amending the colleges governing not lost on Deputy registrar Bob sooner or later its going to come to a Legal he and that Why the idea of open inquiries went to a College sub committee for study this but Brown blames the colleges poor image on Public ignorance of its True the College acts against doctors who repeat mis takes or make an error that should have been avoided not to Safe guard patient he what were looking at is if this person is a risk to the not the problem of Are this patients rights being infringed upon that for civil action to deter Brown secrecy is necessary to build Public Faith in the Brown the College must not Only consider doctors whose reputations could be ruined by but the privacy of patients As he Public scrutiny Brown is not alone in backing the current system of protecting doctors from Public the father of Canadian medi retired Saskatchewan supreme court Justice Emmett says he has Faith in despite growing Public demands for More openness in discipline of doctors properly belongs behind closed he the status of the medical profession is such that the leading physicians become members of College and they Are people of Hall when charges Are made against doctors it is very Damag even though there May be no Merit in but even Hall is critical of the shorts rift Given to patients under the they should have the right to attend a hearing because they might want to give rebuttal they cant give it unless they know what has been under current Manitoba patients can Appeal College Deci Sions to the court of Queens but they have to rely on College officials to learn the Progress of their patients also have the right to sue a doctor for malpractice in civil four of last years 193 complainants were advised by the College to do just across 873 people took Legal action against doctors last while doctors sought Legal advice about matters that could land them in at the same the Manitoba College is trying to avoid inquiries into misconduct or Brown were trying to develop pro Grams which avoid not because of the Cost or to avoid Public scrutiny but because they Are he the registrar said a relatively new rehabilitation system audits of doctors practices and compulsory orders to go Back to school May look bad to the pub but it Walker added that the College Doest see itself As the Long Arm of the were interested in rehabilitation is typically used with doctors whose skills have lapsed because of illness or Addic Tion to drugs or University of Manitoba medical school Dean Nicholas Anthoni sen backs reeducation Over pull ing even but Fooks warns that if doctors and other professionals dont find a better Way to maintain Stan governments next David versus lawyers suspension boosted continued from Page 1 at that the society fined him and assessed costs for withholding information and act ing improperly after becoming aware of acts and omissions which gave Rise to a professional liability its 1989 annual report Mccawley said although there Are provisions in place for a Dis barred lawyer to apply for rein its highly unusual for one to do Dunlop could not be reached for in an unrelated the so Cletys judicial committee decided 23 to add another six months to a nine month suspension Given to lawyer Edward Shelley Partington on March at the Partington was found guilty of 14 breaches of requirements imposed by society rules on accounts and fined 000 on top of the the judicial committee ruled that of Partington and associates on Pembina High would have to practise under supervision for an unspecified length of time after the sus pension was the annual report Mccawley said a suspension is considered a heavy penalty for a from which its difficult to she said two cases of misconduct so close together does not indicate widespread wrongdoing in the sometimes it can be quiet for a Long then we can have a rash of bad she apm to Baku residents examine bus that had its windows shot soviet crackdown kills at least 57 continued from Page 1 Jani extremists and smashed their soviet Media at least 57 people were reported the iranian news Agency said Iran foreign ministry expressed deep regret Over such improper measures and seriously wants the soviet government to halt violent encounter with the people of Azer Baijan and resolve the Issue by employing peaceful but which has sought in creased ties with the soviet Union in recent accused imperialist countries of setting a trap for the soviet Union to take a biased attitude against certain of its re pub it did not the to announcement in Nakhli Chevan said soviet troops should leave an azerbaijani enclave whose capital City has the same Irna the City of Nash Chevan is on the iranian Border Kilometres South of television broadcast a Resolution of the Nash Chevan presidium de manding Independence from to a pullout of soviet troops and an end to alleged soviet aggression in the Agency it also appealed to the United nations and world governments to help safeguard Nakhli Che vans territorial integrity and prevent a the Agency violence first broke out in the enclave located Between Armenia and Iran in november when armenian Media reported gangs of azerbaijanis ransacked armenian residents Homes in troops Tass says continued from Page 1 spent the afternoon in a pitched Battle with soviet troops in the a Yanovsky Barracks in downtown by evening the shooting he said in a Telephone interview from the but he had no further the soviet news Agency Tass Agency quoted Deputy defence min ister Valentin Varen Nikov say ing militants surrounded the bar Racks and troops who moved in to defend it were attacked by snipers firing heavy calibre machine guns from the soldiers opened warning fire Only in defence of strategic Sites and their own if the attacks didst they fired Only on those who were threatening he the Interior ministry reported 51 civilians and six soldiers dead yes it said 287 civilians and 36 soldiers were Korsh said in a Telephone interview from Baku that corpses were strewn on the Road to the cites azerbaijani activists said the number of dead climbed into the thousands after armoured personnel carriers surrounded a Central Square in Baku and opened fire with but Arif Yunosoff of the azerbaijani social democratic group said the troops fired into the air in a vain attempt to dispel the crowd of troops moved into a Caspian sea port of million Early army and internal Security troops have been build ing up in Armenia and Azerbaijan for several but they previously had not entered soldiers surrounded a Square near the communist party where about azerbaijanis gathered in an antigovernment pro said Leila also of the azerbaijani social Democrat the biggest Battles were reported to have raged around the Airport and military where armed pro testers were trying to prevent reinforcements from travelling to the strife torn the azerbaijani nationalist popu Lar front in a City of a million people on the Caspian told Reuters news Agency by Telephone that at least 120 people had died in the red army attack on Baku Early several Hundred dead popular front sources in both Moscow and Baku had earlier estimated the death toll among azerbaijanis at up to the azerbaijani Ambas Sador in Saroyan Ibragi told a news conference there were several Hundred he said his information came from military but he had no further foreign correspondents Are not allowed into the violence torn re pub and the death toll claims could not be verified the troops were ordered into Baku under a Kremlin decree that declared criminal extremist forces had sought to overthrow soviet Power in the Republic on the coun try strategic Southern Border with Iran and the action came after a three Day standoff during which azerbaijani militants blocked troops in Barracks and at airports of the which is located about Kilometres South East of the government declared a state of emergency in Baku after troops forcefully entered the the Street is covered with said Vadim an editor of Azerbaijan official news he was describing the scene at the cites military where one of the biggest clashes Korsh said that in the attack on army tanks and armoured personnel carriers slowed through barricades set up by the running Over anyone m their the Azerbaijan communist party Abdulrahman was fired and replaced by two people azerbaijani president Ayaz Mut Ali Bov and party second Secretary Viktor Tass censorship was in full Force As part of the state of Tass had photographs of soldiers fighting but editors said they were not permitted to release radio Moscow said the emergency measures forbid strikes and Street the use of duplicating and the use of trans port without special the first Deputy foreign Alex Ander told reporters in Moscow the measures and introduction of troops had improved the situation in but the reports of mass rallies and the continued sound of gunshots ringing out in the azerbaijani capital indicated adding to the problems were Dar ing political moves by a Erbai party expects serious consideration continued from Page 1 the Wip plan for re leased last Calls for a majority of voters in National referendums to decide major including the right to veto deficit it also demands equal representation for each part of Canada in the Senate and says English should be the one official Fred the party Winni Peg said the key de Mand is that any constitutional changes would have to be approved by the general which the Canadian Constitution Doest re the Trudeau Constitution was Only a Banda id solution and people never voted on Cameron even some islands in the Pacific can vote on their Clark said the party has not received any feedback since the Docu ment was sent to the East bloc countries on but he said the party expects it will be Given serious consideration because there is great value in were not expecting to become consultants to Eastern but we believe they will take it serious he any time a country draws up a new Constitution they look at other Clark noted that the party Constitution is itself based on several including those of Swit Zerland and but an assistant professor of Politi Cal studies at the University of Manitoba said he doubts the document will do much to influence East bloc by and Large most countries tend to View such things As interference in their own Domestic Ken Mcvicar and Given the level at which events Are occurring in Eastern it will be almost Mcvicar also stressed that most nations in Eastern Europe Are aware of the problems with the Canadian Constitution and the Meech Lake Odds sought in lottery ads continued from Page 1 it was illegal and not she but the Liberal Leader said if the lotteries foundation disclosed the Odds of winning prizes in its advertisements and at places where tickets Are it might Cut Down the there has to be truth in and Carstairs said lotteries Are too entrenched for governments to remove too much of the provinces natural recreation and other needs Are dependent on lottery Carstairs also noted there is evidence that the proliferation of lotteries May be reaching its some fundraising groups Are staging with houses and cars As she Many people will buy such tickets for lotteries run by hospitals or organizations dedicated to fighting certain because they would ordinarily do Nate Large amounts each year Carstairs but some service organizations have had trouble breaking even on big ticket she you have to get bigger and because people Are losing lotteries lotto Toronto up the winning numbers in yesterdays lotto649 draw Are and the Bonus number is there was no Winner of the Jackpot prize of the lotto649 Jackpot prize Pool estimate for the next draw will be the second prize awarded to those Matching five regular num Bers and the Bonus had 10 winners of the third prize awarded to those Matching five regular num had 237 winners of the fourth prize awarded to those Matching four regular num had winners of in there were prizes of awarded to those Matching three regular there was a total of prizes Worth daily Deal yesterdays results Are 9 of Jack of 6 of clubs and King of a match of All four playing cards on one Selec Tion wins times the a match of three playing cards wins 30 times the and a match of two playing cards wins three times the ;