03/01/2022
**Your HELP is urgently needed.**
Yesterday the provincial government proposed Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022. Hidden within this proposed labour bill is a major strike to the regulated healthcare profession of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
While the wording of the section implies increased labour mobility, in reality it calls for the repeal of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Act (2006) which was passed specifically to ensure public safety.
Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists are highly trained healthcare professionals and without training, TCM and acupuncture care can be very dangerous. If TCM is deregulated, any one with a very little amount of training (or even none) would be able to insert needles into patients or prescribe herbal formulas that have the potential of causing serious harm when not properly administered.
As both a member of the profession and a faculty member at Humber College's TCM Practitioner Program, I am highly concerned by this matter. TCM training in this province is 3000 hours of study, includes intensive anatomy, physiology, and pathology training in addition to TCM theory, diagnostic and clinical training. I can speak to the level of skill that is required to safely perform acupuncture and the proposed changes drastically increase risk for the general public.
In addition to the increased risk posed to the general public, there is also no route for keeping the profession accountable should this bill pass. Our regulatory body, the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario (CTCMPAO) also monitors the profession for issues of professional misconduct and serves the public by providing a meaningful way of reporting concerns and complaints about individual practitioners.
Finally, there has been ZERO consultation with stakeholders about this proposed deregulation. Our regulatory body was only informed yesterday after the first reading of this bill. No other regulated health care profession has been singled out in this way and as such it presents itself as a politically driven decision which does not have the public welfare at heart.
Deregulation will greatly impact thousands of practitioners who are largely self-employed, who have been deemed essential workers throughout the pandemic, and are now finding their livelihoods on the line again.
This is an URGENT matter as the second reading of this bill may happen today or tomorrow. PLEASE reach out to your MPP and express your concerns. You can also reach out to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, the health critic for the official opposition, and the labour critic for the official opposition.
It appears that the government is looking to fast track the passing of this bill as part of its bid to win re-election. Please help us keep our profession safe for you.
