Peace and Environment News* June 1995
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Peace and Environment News * June 1995 |
by Estelle Taylor
Dr. Jozef Krop is being charged with professional misconduct by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. His supporters say it's because he practises environmental medicine.
Krop is to go before a college disciplinary hearing June 5. The college licences all doctors and regulates all practices in Ontario. Krop's charges, released by his lawyer, include inappropriate diagnosis, treatment, referrals and advice as well as professional misconduct, conflict of interest and incompetence.
Krop, a Mississauga doctor, has been practising in Canada since 1977. He has taken environmental medicine courses since 1979. He uses environmental medicine techniques in conjunction with more conventional therapies to treat his patients.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons maintains Krop's charges have nothing to do with the fact that he practises environmental medicine. But Krop, his lawyer, and his supporters argue the very nature of the charges show this to be an attack on environmental and other "unconventional" medical practices.
For example, the college is upset Krop told a patient he needed an air purifier and that he prescribed treatments such as "vitamins, 'serum' and other injections, calcium and magnesium." One charge against him relates to the use of a computer system to help identify harmful substances.
The college has judged certain actions as inappropriate. Krop's supporters say that the problem is the college doesn't recognize environmental medicine as appropriate.
"The college has a narrow vision of what constitutes good conventional medical practices, and it is determined that Ontario doctors do not drift from usual patriarchal, pill-prescribing practices," says Judy Spence, with Citizens for Choice in Health Care.
The college says it's not attacking unconventional treatment. "There is nothing in the law or college regulations to prohibit a physician from using "non-traditional" methods in his or her practice, and simply doing so is not in itself grounds for charges of professional misconduct or incompetence," the college wrote in a letter to Members of Parliament. (The letter was in response to a letter Citizens for Choice sent to MPs.)
Citizens for Choice argue that though there is no open prohibition on alternative medicine and doctors aren't charged for practising such methods, doctors can be charged for not using the current, conventional, accepted standard approach.
The group worries peers judging Krop's actions are biased and unknowledgeable, unable to fairly assess Krop's practices as inappropriate or not.
Supporters say techniques doctors such as Krop use are appropriate and are seen as such by many. Complementary medicine, which includes environmental medicine, acupuncture, nutritional counselling, and holistic and homeopathic medicine, is practiced by licensed physicians around the world. Nova Scotia funds an environmental health clinic. The Ministry of Health in Ontario is funding clinical and research programs in Toronto for the environmentally hypersensitive.
Citizens for Choice in Health Care says this case illustrates how a patient's right to choose his or her type of medical treatment is being threatened. The college isn't serving "all the public, including those who want and need access to non-traditional and complementary therapies," the group said in a press release.
But the college says it's serving the public through this case. The college "establishes and monitors standards of medical care to protect the public, and investigates complaints from the public about their medical care," says spokesman Jim Maclean.
But no patients have complained about Krop's practices. In October 1991, Krop's office was inspected, though there had been no complaints, and twenty-nine medical charts were taken. Krop's charges, laid in September 1994, are based on six of those charts.
Supporters say the college isn't concerned with patient outcome or satisfaction.
"The consumers of health care are the real losers. We are getting sicker as a whole and we need specialists to help guide us through the mess that pollution has gotten us into," says Spence, but, as she goes on to say, cases such as this are making it harder, if not impossible, to get such specialists.
Krop says he's done nothing wrong. "My treatment of all my patients is not only appropriate, safe, beneficial and not negligent, but also...each of my patients should have freedom to choose for his and herself environmental and complementary therapies," he wrote in a letter to patients.
Krop has not been restricted from practising since being charged.
Converted July 7, 2000 - Lg
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