Brickbat: Stay Right Where You Are
Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro has ordered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, which licenses and regulates doctors in the province, to ban groups of doctors from withdrawing from practice at the same time. The move is aimed at stopping doctors from closing their practices or leaving en masse in response to the province's recent cuts in health care funding. Shandro says doctors must be required to provide three months notice before leaving practice and required to "provide effective alternative resources and/or arrangements for patients if they choose to withdraw services." If they can't, the government would force them to continue to practice "until effective alternative resources and/or arrangements have been created."