A ridiculous and futile act

Here's an excellent article from The Seattle Times - Biggest number of offenders are "registered counselors" Here's an excerpt:

To be a manicurist in the state of Washington, you must take 600 hours of training and pass both a written exam and a skills demonstration.

To cut hair, you need 1,000 hours of training and the two tests.

But to be a registered counselor, someone who will help guide troubled clients through some of their most difficult life challenges, you need take only a four-hour AIDS-awareness class. That's it — that and a $40 registration fee. You don't even need a high-school diploma.

That sounds like an invitation for trouble — and it is.

In Ontario to call yourself a social worker or social service worker you have to be registered with the College of Social Work and Social Service Workers. If a person identifies themselves as a Social worker and they're not registered it's an offense under clauses 46 and 47 of the Social Work and Social Service Work Act.

Where this is a problem are in women's shelters. Some shelters in Ontario are run better than others but in Hamilton ethically and legally run women's shelters are elusive.

Interval House and Mary's Place are two such shelters in Hamilton that hire individuals that have either been through the shelter system, studied criminology, psychology and even anthropology. But that doesn't make them social workers.

Yet it isn't unusual for these shelter workers to identify themselves as social workers ready to comply with some very strict professional rules of conduct. What makes it more nefarious is that these individuals are equated as health care professionals as far as Hamilton's physicians are concerned. So it also isn't unusual for these "social workers" to collect personal health information and disclose that personal health information to nurses acting a physicians within Hamilton's mental health care "system". The psychiatrists believe that this "personal health information" is credible and use it to the detriment of their patients.

Good Shepherd is the governing body of Mary's Place and is one such agency that hires ex-cons/drug addicts to "counsel" their clients in a number of programs through-out the Hamilton area - mainly in housing situations. These staff members have access to the personal health information of individuals who are suffering from some very severe illnesses. None of the staff, including those who have studied psychology or social work that work for Good Shepherd are registered with the College of Social Work or the College of Psychologists.

The lengths that the staff working for such shelters and agencies would go to include stating they are above the law. The manager of Mary's Place stated to me in a taped conversation that she didn't have to comply with any of Ontario's legislation or federal for that matter - including the Criminal Code of Canada and the Human Rights Code.

What seems apparent is that this bestowment of rights above the law is given by the City of Hamilton, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and the Ministry of Community and Social Services from whom they get their funding.

In a published letter to the editor of the Hamilton Spectator in 2004 a "doctor" from Dundas Ontario, wrote how hard the staff worked at Mary's Place, telling the public they were ethical and deserved a raise in pay.

Myself, knowing how the staff really work at the shelter it cited, decided to find out if this "doctor" actually existed.

He didn't.

He wasn't a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Psychologists, a chiropractor, an eye doctor or even a professor at McMaster University. The only 'doctor' that existed with a similar name was a Ph.D in Guelph that specialized in industrial psychology. His office staff confirmed with me in writing that he did not write the letter and he did not live in Dundas.

I confronted the editor of the letters to the editor page at The Spec and wanted to know why they published a letter by a bogus doctor? The editor stated nervously that he was new to the position and said I should be an 'investigator'. Hmmm

Who sent the letter? I wouldn't put it past Mary's Place staff or someone associated with them to write a fake letter. I also wondered if someone at the Spectator wrote the letter themselves.
What was important is that The Spec didn't check to make sure that the letter came from a credible source and published it.

Yes, there are laws and regulations that are on paper in Ontario. Those who are expected to enforce these regulations often don't so the administration of justice becomes a farce.

Actually it's not becoming a farce, it is a farce - a ridiculous and futile act. Because there is no enforcement agencies like these, hospitals and physicians can get away with some serious violations of law.

And they know it.