Doctor’s Return After Convictions Draws Protest

Thu., March 27, 1997

Associated Press

Health Minister Joy MacPhail wants the group that regulates British Columbia doctors to reconsider its decision to allow a psychiatrist twice convicted of having sex with patients to return to practice.

MacPhail said Tuesday that she will ask the College of Physicians and Surgeons to reconsider its decision to allow Dr. Colin Leech-Porter to treat patients - especially young women - with schizophrenia.

The doctor is returning to practice after serving a three-year suspension for engaging in sex several times with a patient in 1981. He served a one-year suspension after being convicted of having sex with another patient in the early 1980s.

The college said it based its decision on the fact that the doctor has received counseling and promised not to “slip” again.

Leech-Porter said in a recent interview he’d focus his practice on geriatrics suffering from schizophrenia, but would not rule out treating young women, as long as “they are schizoaffective or schizophrenic.”

“This is unacceptable,” said Jane Duval, a spokeswoman for an organization representing schizophrenics and their families.

The B.C. Schizophrenia Society wants the B.C. Medical Association to do whatever it can to ensure the doctor does not succeed in his plans to treat schizophrenics, Duval said.

The society represents the families of 36,000 people in British Columbia suffering from schizophrenia, a brain disease that can severely impair the thinking process.

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