FRY TO CLEMENT: CMA IS NO PLACE FOR IDEOLOGY
Dr. Hedy Fry blasts federal Health Minister on anti-Insite speech to the CMA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 19, 2008
MONTREAL – Dr. Hedy Fry, MP for Vancouver Centre, today voiced her alarm at the federal Health Minister's speech to Canadian physicians on Monday.
"The Minister of Health took his government’s ideology one step too far in his speech,” said Fry. “Overstepping every acceptable boundary, Minister Clement invaded the realm of clinical practice by pontificating on what he considered to be appropriate treatment, then questioning the ethics of physicians who disagree.”
The Minister of Health dedicated over three quarters of his speech to Insite, questioning the ethics of physicians who participated in or supported the project. He then blasted the CMA for its support of Insite, disregarding clinical outcomes and 22 international scientific reviews that confirm the project’s success.
"The Minister of Health had an opportunity to speak about the health challenges facing Canada - wait times, the critical shortage of physicians, food safety, and the alarming obesity and diabetes epidemic afflicting Canadian youth,” said Fry. “Instead, he has again demonstrated his neurotic obsession with safe-injection sites.”
After Minister Clement spoke, the CMA’s Chair of Ethics warned of the dangers of government interference in the practice of medicine. Dr. Fry, also in Montreal for the CMA’s annual general meeting, agreed, stating “ideology is dangerous when used to intervene in the clinical decision-making of physicians.”
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The Honourable Dr. Hedy Fry is the MP for Vancouver Centre, a physician and past-President of the BC Medical Association. Fry was also the federal Minister responsible for the Vancouver Agreement, which oversaw the inception of Vancouver’s safe-injection site.
