Licensure Debate

To All Ontario Perfusionists:
The Ontario Society of Clinical Perfusion will be considering the possibility of seeking regulation of our profession under the Province’s Regulated Health Professions Act at his year’s Annual General Meeting. Meeting details will be posted on the OSCP website as soon as they are confirmed.

Background
In February, contact was made with the Cardiology Technologists (OSCT) to see if they were interested in joining us in a joint application to the Government of Ontario to become a regulated health profession. We were informed by the OSCT that they were already involved in a consortium that had applied to the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council (HPRAC). This is the council that advises the Minister on the need for and practicality of regulating health professions. The OSCP was given an opportunity to attend an informational meeting with the consultant for the OSCT on this matter. This meeting was held in April. Peter Allen and I attended on behalf of the OSCP to see if Perfusion might be able to join this group.
The Groups: The consortium consisted of: The OSCT, The Medical Sonographers, The Cathlab Technologists, Sleep Technologists, EEG Technologists, and EMG Technologists. The largest of these groups is the Medical Sonographers. They represent about 1,100 members. The total membership of all groups is about 2,300. The Medical Sonographers may decide to leave this group and become members of the College of Medical Radiation Technology. If that should happen, the remaining groups, in particular the OSCT are prepared to continue without them. Although the total membership of the remaining groups is about 1,100 to 1,200, it is estimated that an equal number of non-member practioners exist. That would bring the membership of the college to over 2,000 people.
The opportunity for this foray into possible regulation came about when the Minister of Health and Long Term Care referred the question of regulating the medical sonographers to HPRAC. The OSCT saw this as an opportunity to get in front of the council, and sought other professions to join them. To date, it is estimated that the process has cost about $40,000, with more expenses to come. We have been asked for $2,000 as a good faith amount to allow us to remain as part of the application. The Board of Directors of the OSCP approved this amount. As a result, we keep our place with this group until the end of September. By that time, we will have met at our annual general meeting, and decided if we want to continue.

Pros and Cons
There are two major questions that we have to answer here. One: do we wish to become a regulated profession? Two: is this the right time and place to do so?
Some reasons for regulation are: protection of the public; protection of our profession by setting the standards for gaining a license; giving us a voice and status with government agencies when questions arise about health regulation; having a college to which delegated acts may be assigned; and controlling our own entry to regulation and not waiting to be forced into it.

Some reasons not to attempt regulation are: we become visible and may get forced into regulation other than with the chosen group; the way we are doing it now is as close to regulation as you can get without actually being regulated; it is costly to gain regulation and to maintain it; it is a lot of time, effort and expense with no guarantees and little personal benefit; and the public is already protected by our current credentialing system.

There may be more significant reasons on both sides of this discussion. I am calling on all Ontario Perfusionists to make sure their views on this are made known. To that end, the Ontario Society of Clinical Perfusion will be holding a panel discussion with Q & A on this topic at its next annual general meeting in Southlake Regional Hospital on Saturday, September 20th, 2008.

All are welcome to attend. Non-members of the OSCP are welcome to register for the Scientific Sessions where the panel discussion and Q & A will take place, but may not be allowed to attend the business meeting and as such will have no voice or vote at that meeting.

Sincerely
Board of Directors
OSCP