{"id":6168,"date":"2015-06-05T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T17:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2018-03-09T09:24:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T17:24:33","slug":"submission-to-cpss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6168","title":{"rendered":"Protection of Conscience Project sees progress, room for improvement in draft Saskatchewan policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Draft\u00a0 policy no longer demands referral by objecting physicians<\/h2>\n

Project –\u00a0 Prohibiting communication with patients\u00a0by objecting physicians “unsound”; disclaimer\u00a0re:<\/em><\/strong> euthanasia and assisted suicide “misleading and ill advised”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

News Release<\/strong><\/p>\n

Protection of Conscience Project<\/p>\n

A committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan has revised a controversial draft policy after a public consultation\u00a0yielded\u00a0“a very significant return” of\u00a0over 4,400 responses, almost all of which opposed it.\u00a0 The consultation appears to have produced no evidence that anyone in Saskatchewan has ever been unable to access medical services because a physician has declined to provide or refer for a procedure for reasons of conscience, or that the health of anyone in Saskatchewan has ever been adversely affected by conscientious objection by a physician.<\/p>\n

The committee concluded\u00a0that objecting physicians “should not be obligated to provide a referral to a physician who will ultimately potentially provide the service.”\u00a0 The requirement was deleted from the revised draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a submission to the College<\/a>, the Protection of Conscience describes\u00a0the deletion as as\u00a0“entirely satisfactory” and “a tacit admission that such a policy would be an unacceptable assault on freedom of conscience – not a compromise.”<\/p>\n

However, the revised draft\u00a0effectively prohibits objecting physicians\u00a0from communicating with\u00a0patients about morally contested procedures, requiring them\u00a0to refer patients to a non-objecting colleague.\u00a0 The assumption underlying the recommendation is that a physician who has a moral viewpoint is incapable of properly communicating with a patient because of ‘bias’.<\/p>\n

In its submission, the Project points out that\u00a0all physicians have moral viewpoints. If the proposed policy\u00a0is to be applied fairly and consistently, the ‘bias’ of physicians who do not<\/em> object to a procedure should be nullified in the same way.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0proposal is unsound.\u00a0 If applied as now written, it would simply exchange one kind of alleged ‘bias’ for another.\u00a0 If applied fairly and consistently to all physicians,\u00a0it would\u00a0inconvenience patients, delay treatments, provide no better outcomes, double the costs of providing health care and antagonize physicians on all sides of any issue.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Project recommends that all physicians should be required to provide patients with sufficient information to satisfy the requirements of informed medical decision making, and<\/p>\n