By Keith Leslie, The Associated Press
TORONTO, Canada (CP) -- Ontario will become the first province to require hospitals to notify police whenever a patient comes in with a gunshot wound, Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter announced Wednesday.
“The policy on reporting currently varies from hospital to hospital, even doctor to doctor,” Kwinter said.
“We’re fixing the current imbalance in which hospitals and medical staff are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to report patients treated for gunshot wounds.”
Kwinter said legislation “will protect health care facilities so they can give authorized information to the police without worrying about their exposure to liability.”
He said the bill will standardize the reporting procedures for hospitals across Ontario, and insisted something left out of the legislation is equally important.
“It would not make it mandatory for family physicians, to name one group, to report gunshot patients to police,” he said.
“Keeping intact the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship.”
Kwinter said the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, the Ontario Association of Police Service Boards and the Toronto Police force all asked the government to force hospitals to report the name of patients that come in with gunshot wounds.
“Just last week, the board of directors of the Ontario Medical Association unanimously passed a resolution supporting mandatory reporting” of gunshots, he added.
“Physicians recognize the special threat that guns pose to public safety,” said Dr. John Rapin, president of the Ontario Medical Association.
Dr. Howard Ovens, chief of emergency services at Mount Sinai hospital, said he saw the need for mandatory reporting four years ago after “an incident in which our staff found themselves on opposite sides of the law with police.”
“There were no rules. There was a lot of confusion,” said Ovens.
“Neither police nor doctors had a common understanding of how they should interact.”
If the bill is passed, hospitals and other health care facilities would be required to verbally report the names of people who are treated for gunshot wounds to their local police service as soon as practicable.
Private facilities, such as walk-in clinics and family physicians would be exempt from the proposed legislation.
No other province has legislation specifically requiring the reporting of gunshot wounds, but 45 American states have some form of mandatory reporting law.
NDP house leader Peter Kormos said his party is worried the mandatory reporting of gunshots could stop victims from going to the emergency room.
“The real concern is whether or not that reporting requirement is going to deter victims of gunshot wounds from going to hospitals seeking treatment,” said Kormos.
“One understands the interest being served in requiring reporting, but at the same time we need to hear from doctors and other professionals about the onus it puts on them.”
The Conservatives said they will support the legislation, but claimed the timing of the announcement was purely political, noting provincial police chiefs will meet in Toronto next week.
“Minister Kwinter hasn’t introduced any policy statements, he’s done nothing in legislation around law and order,” said Tory critic Garfield Dunlop.
“He’s got to have something to announce when he’s down there at the Chiefs of Police conference next week.”