Menu

Publications/Articles

William Osler discipline of doctor an egregious abuse of power

Authored February 9, 2021

Related Services:

Abstract

The decision by the William Osler Health System to strip a physician of a medical director role after he criticized the province’s handling of COVID-19 is an egregious abuse of power by hospital leadership.

All public hospitals are governed by provincial legislation, allowing them to make operational decisions. But Osler managers are overstepping their bounds by assuming they have the power to infringe on a physician’s constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression.

As the Toronto Star reports, Dr. Brooks Fallis was removed as interim medical director of critical care at William Osler Health System, despite his efforts to lead them through the pandemic. The reason? He says it was because hospital management disliked his public remarks on Twitter about how the province was dealing with COVID-19, and threatened that his comments could endanger the funding relied on by the hospital.

This article was published in the Toronto Star on Tuesday February 9, 2021



Testimonials

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to have been selected as a Tremayne-Lloyd Fellow here at Western Law. I used the funds to finish a book and to begin work on a new one. It dawned on me far too late that I had never thanked you for that splendid gift. The new book is to be published by Harvard Press in 2010. The TTL Fellowships provided ritual seed capital for this project, which required me to spend a good deal of time and money at The National Archive in Washington. Again, with many thanks.

R. W. Kostal Professor of Law and History

Tracey Tremayne-Lloyd Health Law