Public safety jeopardized: no consequences for incompetent Medical Officers of Health; CPSO refuses to regulate

In October 2019 a comprehensive complaint (>90 pages signed by >100 individuals) against Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit was submitted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), in regards to blatantly false and misleading statements he made to Windsor City Council on Monday, December 17, 2018, just minutes before the Council voted to re-introduce the practice of fluoridating public drinking water (and thus fluoridating the elderly, the sick and immunocompromised, the pregnant, born and unborn infants, children and everyone else).

The video below outlines some of Dr. Ahmed’s blatantly false and misleading statements.

CPSO’s preliminary decision was that they intended not to investigate our complaint. We filed a 17 page formal response to their preliminary decision, below.

Below is CPSO’s final decision letter indicating they will take no action in regards to the complaint.

The stunningly illogical justification CPSO provided for both their preliminary and final decisions? The professional behaviour of a Medical Officer of Health does not relate to the practice of medicine.

Below are images taken from CPSO’s preliminary and final decision letters.

Ontario Minister of Health Christine Elliot was formally advised in December 2019 of the comprehensive complaint and of CPSO’s refusal to investigate and of CPSO’s formal position that Medical Officers of Health (who are required by law to be members of CPSO) are none of their concern or responsibility, see below.

We asked Christine Elliot to intervene (as per her duties and powers under Ontario’s Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, S.O. 1991, c. 18).

Below is a screenshot showing the bizarre, unaddressed and unsigned email response (from CSU.MOH@ontario.ca – the email account for Correspondence Services, Ministry of Health) to our advisement of the Health Minister. (Click here to see a larger version.)

We aren’t lawyers, but we do find that this “very sketchy” email seems to deny the duties and powers of the Health Minister as provided under the Regulated Health Professions Act.

The email also falsely implies that CPSO’s illogical stance applies only to our complaint against Dr. Ahmed, when in fact CPSO is clearly refusing to protect the public from badly behaving Medical Officers of Health in general. Perhaps this is why the sender of the email did not sign their name.