Not only is it now mandatory to disclose mental health issues, but the regulatory college in Ontario also has access to physicians' private personal health records. This has created even further barriers to physicians' access to care.
These are serious issues. For some reason, the Ontario government does not see physicians as human and has completely dehumanized the profession. We need to start thinking of doctors as being human and to start treating them as we would treat patients.
There are significant issues within the Ontario regulatory college. Just yesterday we became the first jurisdiction in the entire world to lose our freedom of conscience. No such legislation exists anywhere else in Canada and no such legislation exists anywhere else in the world.
We have also lost our freedom of due process through the regulatory college and our presumption of innocence, which also came with the passage of Bill 87 in 2017.
There are significant issues and challenges for front-line doctors, not only in terms of trying to deliver front-line patient care with limited resources and with an increased escalation of violence and sexual harassment on the front lines, but also in terms of roadblocks and barriers being put up by the regulatory college and by the government that actually impede access to essential mental health and physical health care, which is crucially needed.