Everyone in my area, and probably all of BC, is well aware of the difficulty in obtaining a family doctor, and even the frustration of attending clinics for hours with no certainty of getting seen.  This, of course, stems from the chronic shortage of doctors here in BC.

Actually, let me amend that; there isn’t really such a shortage as there are doctors who have come to Canada to practice medicine only to find themselves waiters, cooks, warehousemen or assistants in care facilities. Why is this? Because here in BC anyway The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC doesn’t want them to practice without paying vast sums of money to the college.

It is interesting to me that Canadian doctors are welcomed abroad without having to pay to help treat people in Africa for instance, yet an African doctor coming here is not welcomed as a doctor.  Sounds like a typical semi-political body flexing it bigoted muscles to me, and not doing the people or doctors of BC any favours at all. 

I went to the website and looked for the mandate and mission statement and this in part is what I found.

Our mission

Serving the public by regulating physicians and surgeons.

Our mandate

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia regulates the practice of medicine under the authority of provincial law. All physicians who practise medicine in the province must be registrants of the College.

The College’s overriding interest is the protection and safety of patients. The role of the College is to ensure physicians meet expected standards of practice and conduct.

Regulation of the medical profession is based on the foundation that the College must act first and foremost in the interest of the public. The primary function of the College is to ensure that physicians are qualified, competent and fit to practise medicine. The College administers processes for responding to complaints from patients and for taking action if a physician is practising in a manner that is incompetent, unethical or illegal. The College also administers a number of quality assurance activities to ensure physicians remain competent throughout their professional lives.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Yet it is pure BS.

This is the same college that stepped way outside its mandate and closed down the Marigold Natural Compounding Pharmacy in Courtney.   There were no reports of death or injury that I could find.  But in Creston, where a Pharmasave worker issued conflicting pharmaceutical prescriptions that lead to the death of a woman only a 30-day suspension of the pharmacist was given. The College has no clue about natural products or their effect upon the human body and yet they took it upon themselves to raid and then close the Marigold.   Is that not stepping outside their mission by attacking naturopathic doctors and practitioners because they do not pay their dues?  Perhaps more time spent on finding ways to allow immigrant medical doctors to set up shop and look after the people of BC without having to give $15,000 (which most of them do not have) to the College would be a better way to serve the public.   Remember here that most semi-political bodies want to bully rather than help (see the BC Health and 53 vaccinations from birth to age 18) and that is what is happening here.  Perhaps they should also realise that the more doctors there are writing prescriptions for toxic drugs the more money comes from the pharmaceutical companies, so the members of the college can buy that second Mercedes for their wives(husbands).

I am one of those without a western medical doctor and am unable to find one for small cuts, bone breaks etc., and have instead to rely upon the emergency at the SanPen Hospital or whatever clinic I can find that is either open or doesn’t have a mile-long queue.  Fortunately, I am in good health and so it is not soo important and I do have my medical history on a CD should it be needed.

But back to the mandate:

The College’s overriding interest is the protection and safety of patients. The role of the College is to ensure physicians meet expected standards of practice and conduct.

Regulation of the medical profession is based on the foundation that the College must act first and foremost in the interest of the public……….

OK in theory but what about ensuring that there are enough doctors to treat the people of BC? Would that not be in the interest of the public? 

The college is totally against our using naturopathic medicine to actually determine the cause of a problem, and yet it restricts the availability of western pill pushers to treat the symptoms.  I say that somewhat tongue in cheek as I was lucky to have an excellent family doctor for some 30 years who was very understanding of my reluctance to take pharmaceutical pills.

Meanwhile, here in a nearby village, there is an African doctor who is an assistant at a care facility because he doesn’t have the money to jump through the college hoops, and the longer he and his family pay exorbitant rents and high food prices the less chance there is he will ever practice medicine here in BC.

How is that serving the interests of the public?

 I have yet to see a statement from the College about the 5G networks coming to a neighbourhood near you very soon, and I suppose that is because for a while it is going to give the western medicine practitioners a lot of business and chance to prescribe pills which will do nothing. The trouble with something like this is that it affects us all, members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC included.

Find a way to allow doctors with real credentials from another country to practice their medicine, because that is looking after the interests of the people here in BC.

But how does that make money and create power for The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC is the question.

 

Jeremy