An Ontario doctor has begun days of hearings to challenge the suspension of his hospital privileges over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.Dr. Ian DePass, whose hospital privileges were suspended by the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) for failing to comply with its vaccination policy, is before the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board (HPARB).The suspension occurred November 1 2021 after DePass failed to obtain a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and his request for accommodation was rejected. As a surgical assistant, DePass cannot earn a living from medicine without hospital privileges. A father of seven, with two young children at home, he has worked in construction since his suspension.The hospital board, which had approved the COVID-19 vaccine policy, subsequently upheld the suspension following a hearing that took place in February 2022. Subsequently, The Democracy Fund (TDF) retained Ontario lawyer Lisa Bildy to represent DePass in a new hearing (de novo) before the HPARB. This is the process that is followed for challenges to the suspension or termination of hospital privileges under the Public Hospitals Act.As was announced by TDF in June this year, Dr. DePass won a small but critical motion last spring, permitting him to present current evidence about the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing transmission of COVID-19 and thereby widening the scope of the hearing, which the Appeal Board agreed would be a “relevant consideration” in assessing the reasonableness of the CKHA policy, which remains in effect at the hospital. The policy mandates the original two-dose series of injections. Boosters have not been required.The hearing is scheduled to begin on January 10 and will continue for six non-consecutive days, ending January 19. The parties will then make written submissions to the board.In a statement to the Western Standard, Bildy said the mandates were off-base.“Mandating COVID-19 injections, when they had not been through proper trials, had non-trivial safety signals and did not stop transmission of the virus anyway, was an incredible overreach into the personal health decisions of individuals. It was questionable enough when people thought it actually stopped the spread and helped other people, but remaining mandates seem to have pivoted now to being about ‘preventing severe illness,’” Bildy said.“Requiring that people take an injection for their own personal benefit is really beyond the pale and, if normalized, could spell the end of any notion of bodily autonomy. Hopefully this important case, along with a recent federal labour decision and the announcements by some smaller Ontario hospitals this week that they are dropping their vaccine policies, will help the rest of the mandate dominoes to fall quickly.”
