Should physicians tell police if their patients have been drinking and driving?
Reporting drunk drivers 'undermines that relationship that we need to have with patients,' doctor says
In emergency rooms across Canada, drunk drivers are walking out of the hospital without being reported due to patient confidentiality laws.
It's a dilemma that is taking a toll on some ER physicians who are torn between abiding by the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship but also the responsibility of protecting the public's safety.
As an ER physician in Winnipeg, medical ethicist Dr. Merril Pauls, who is married to a CBC reporter, says he encounters a drunk driver on every shift.
"We need to change or consider modifying these rules around confidentiality because we do have some other precedents that would suggest that this is a very important right that patients have but not absolute," he told The Current's guest host Laura Lynch.
Pauls said there are laws in most provinces that oblige doctors to report drivers who are unsafe, for example, a patient that has seizures.
"I need to report that to the medical licensing authorities," he said.
To minimize the burden placed on physicians and the health-care system to report to police, Pauls suggested lowering the threshold for police to request a blood alcohol test. Currently, police need to have a reasonable suspicion that a driver has been drinking in order to test them.
Dr. Rob Green, a medical director at Trauma Nova Scotia where he researches conviction rates among injured drunk drivers, said often times, police officers are unaware a patient is drunk.
Police don't always accompany the driver, which is part of the problem Green said. If an officer doesn't initiate a legal blood alcohol test, the results cannot be shared, he added.
Dr. Shawn Whatley, president of the Ontario Medical Association, doesn't support sharing blood alcohol levels with police without the patient's permission.
"I think it undermines that relationship that we need to have with patients," he said, adding he already has patients who don't come in for treatment after a single-vehicle crash because they are worried they will be reported by police.
"I want to decrease the threshold for patients to be able to come in and get the care they need."
Furthermore, the number of people who come into the emergency department with alcohol in their blood is "enormous," Whatley told Lynch.
"If we were starting to report all people who had blood alcohol levels, I mean I don't know how you'd even managed to keep up with them."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this page, where you can also share this article across email, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.
This segment was produced by The Current's Exan Auyoung and Halifax Network Producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh.