feature
“The policy requires that physicians, who choose to limit the health services
they provide on moral or religious grounds, do so in a manner that respects
patient dignity, ensures access to care and protects patient safety.”
chooses not to provide for reasons of conscience
or religion. What is an ‘effective referral’?
An ‘effective referral’ means a referral that is made in
good faith with a view to supporting, not frustrating or
impeding, access to care.
The referral must be made to another health-care professional. This includes a physician, another health-care
professional or an agency. The health-care professional
must not share the physician’s conscience or religious
objections and must be available and accessible to the
patient. By ‘available and accessible’ the College means
that the health-care professional must be in a location
the patient can access, be operating and/or accepting
patients at the time the referral is made. An effective
referral must also be made in a timely manner to allow
patients to access care. Patients must not be exposed to
adverse clinical outcomes due to a delayed referral.
Physicians will not be considered to have made an ‘effective referral’ if they:
• efer the patient to a physician, health-care profesR
sional or agency who shares the physician’s own
religious or conscience objections (e.g. a referral to an
anti-abortion clinic, referral to a physician who refuses
to prescribe the birth control pill);
• efer the patient to a physician, health-care profesR
sional or agency that is not accessible or available to
the patient: not in a location the patient can access,
or not accepting patients, or not operating at the time
of the referral (e.g. referral to a physician located in
Northern Ontario when the patient lives in Toronto;
referral to an Agency that is closed)
• elay making a referral where the delay results in the
D
patient being unable to access care or where the delay
causes adverse clinical outcome(s).
What if I put a notice up in my office that I don’t
offer specific treatments or procedures for reasons of conscience or religion? Is that sufficient
to comply with this policy?
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No, merely posting a notice is not sufficient to discharge your obligations under the policy.
Communicating with patients in these circumstances
is essential. Communication must occur directly, in
person so that physicians can convey information to the
patient, and can also obtain critically important information from the patient in kind. Information from
the patient is necessary in order to comply with the
expectations in policy: the requirement to provide