Pubdate: Tue, 24 Apr 2012
Source: Bancroft This Week (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 OSPREY Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.bancroftthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3853
Author: Barbara Shaw

PATIENTS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

It's been 90 days since 20 RCMP and OPP officers raided the home and
medical clinic of Dr. Rob Kamermans in Coe Hill. The warrant said the
doctor was possessing and trafficking drugs. Found at his office on
the morning of Jan. 26, Kamermans was cuffed and taken away by the
OPP. He says an officer made him pose for a picture in handcuffs
outside his clinic.

When he asked why he had to be cuffed, he was told it was for the
protection of the police.

"They were 20 young men with guns," Kamermans says quietly. "I am an
old man."

No illegal drugs were found and no charges have been laid. Kamermans
was released from questioning after a few hours on Jan. 26 and left to
find his own way back home to Coe Hill.

Since the raid, the police have not backed down. They will not say
much about the case and have given no indication when they might
return the medical files seized in the raid.

Kamermans is a medical doctor licensed to practice in Canada and
across the border in the U.S. He's soft spoken and timid, but many
consider him a hero.

Along with his wife Mary, a registered nurse, Kamermans helps patients
who are suffering from grave and debilitating diseases. They help
people who are broken and they help the people who will probably never
be fixed.

They help by approving them for the use of medical
marijuana.

Health Canada recognizes that marijuana "remains an illegal and
controlled substance, however, under the marijuana medical access
regulations, Health Canada allows for medical access to marijuana."

On their website, they make it clear that they do not address the
issue of legalizing medical marijuana for general consumption.

And this is where the patients Kamermans helps are getting
stuck.

Police agencies view marijuana as a drug. End of story.

Bancroft staff sergeant Dan Rajsic was clear in his thoughts about
Kamermans in an interview on March 16.

"If you deal drugs you have to expect to deal with the police," he
said.

And this is why the situation is frustrating for the doctor and his
patients. Health Canada allows him to participate in the national
program, it allows him to assess patients and if they are approved he
fills out the paperwork for their permit. This gets sent to Health
Canada for processing and in eight to 10 weeks the patient can either
grow their own marijuana or designate someone to grow it for them.
Patients can also access dried marijuana from Health Canada.

Terminal patients will have waiting times reduced, according to notes
on the Health Canada website.

Kamermans, a believer in the benefits of medical use of marijuana,
said when he first started approving patients he tried to keep it quiet.

Not many doctors were participating and when he would approve someone,
he would ask that they be discreet.

"We would say, you know, don't tell everyone," Kamermans said. "That
didn't really work."

So word spread and more and more clients reached out to the doctor in
his small clinic in Coe Hill.

At the same time patients were being approved, police agencies were
asking Health Canada for access to their names. Health Canada only
releases the number of approved users - not names.

This is part of the reason Kamermans believes he was
targeted.

"The police came in and they took everything," Kamermans said. "They
took the files and they have all of the personal details of people who
we approved and the people who were waiting to be seen and they have
the names of everyone who will expire."

The doctor reports being under surveillance before the raid and the
surveillance notes were extensive-over 100 pages of observations and
photographs of things like the doctor making credit card purchases.

Even now, with no charges laid, Kamermans says the police are never
far from the clinic and he is aware of their presence.

The pressure from the police is making life difficult for both the
doctor and his patients.

This is scary for those in the program. People like Mark, who doesn't
want his last name used. He's in a bad spot because his files have
been taken by the police. He was approved a year ago and now as part
of the Health Canada program regulations, he needs a renewal.

Kamermans is wary about signing any other forms. Not only is he
missing his charts, but he's still under pressure from the OPP and
he's being investigated for his practices by the College of Physicians
and Surgeons of Ontario.

Kathryn Clarke is the senior communications coordinator for the
college and she confirms Kamermans is under investigation for his
medical marijuana practice.

Kamermans says the complaint that started the investigation was
launched by another physician who does not support the program. When
the patient disclosed to their own doctor that he or she was using
medical marijuana, as approved by Dr. Kamermans, the complaint was
made.

Back to Mark, who has travelled close to 500 kilometres for this
clinic visit. He's a young professional with a family and he has
ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel
disease that affects the lining of the large intestine and rectum.
This painful and debilitating disease runs in Mark's family and he has
had symptoms for years.

"It was getting really bad and I was having flare-ups and being
hospitalized for three weeks at a time," Mark says. "There is no way
to describe the pain."

He was put on narcotics for the pain and given strong drugs that he
describes as being chemo-type. Nothing was really helping the disease,
which can be made worse by stress.

Then his partner suggested marijuana. He thought she was crazy, but he
was desperate and worried about getting worse and having to face
surgery. So, he tried it.

"It was really effective," Mark says. "I started feeling better and
the flare-ups went away."

Mark searched for a doctor to approve him but had no luck. Then, like
many others in his situation, he heard about Kamermans and he made the
long trip to see if the doctor could help.

"I was respected and listened to and helped," Mark says. "This is an
awful disease and I am glad that I am not suffering anymore."

But that might not be true for this patient and for others that the
doctor has been working with. With the files gone it is hard to work.
The college has their investigation and no hearing date has been set
and there's the ongoing presence of the OPP.

Mark is upset with the situation.

"This is a medication and it makes me feel better," he says. "I can
tell you that I now have quality of life and I don't want to have to
buy drugs on the black market. That's not something I want to do."

Mark is not alone. Many of Kamermans's patients don't want to stop
taking the one medication that has started making their lives better,
but without their forms filled-out and renewed each year, they will be
forced to break the law, they say.

If they choose to become illegal users, with Kamermans's files, they
fear the OPP and RCMP will target them.

Finding another doctor is not easy. The college will not release the
names of the doctors participating in the program and patients are
encouraged to speak with their own family physicians.

This doesn't always have a good outcome.

When Kamermans was taken into custody the investigating officer asked
why all doctors don't participate in the program.

"I said to the police, then they would have to deal with the police
and be treated like this," Kamermans reports.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario does not release the
names of doctors who participate in the program and neither does
Health Canada.

Ryan is another patient of Kamermans. He also doesn't want his name
used although he's fully aware that the police now have it.

Ryan is a professional, running his own business and raising a family.
He says it's hard enough to live with multiple sclerosis and when he
heard that marijuana could help his disease, he asked his doctor.

"He wouldn't help," Ryan says. "And then I found the Kamermanses and
they were compassionate and caring and they listened to all of my
concerns and approved me and I started feeling better. I have two
young kids and now I have an appetite and I can sleep and the horrible
pain is under control."

"I am not depressed like I was," Ryan says. "This is a great
doctor."

Ryan says his heart goes out to the man who helped him function
again.

"I'm compassionate for him," Ryan says. "He's sitting there all alone
having to deal with this crap. He's the one who gets the negative
publicity and has to risk everything. This is allowed by Health Canada
but the police are making this hard for him and hard for us."

"It is humbling to live in such extreme pain," Ryan says. "People need
to understand this."

There has been negative publicity. Global Television featured the
doctor in a recent documentary. Kamermans and his wife didn't want to
speak to the media, on the advice of their lawyer, and they sent a
letter to Global asking for their privacy. The crew came anyway and
ambushed the doctor on a dirt road outside of Coe Hill. They accused
him of profiting off a broken system and of acting
unprofessionally.

Kamermans is eager to clarify the damaging details of that
story.

He does bill OHIP for clinic visits. This is allowed. He also bills
for the non-insured service of filling out medical forms. This is the
same as paying your doctor for a sick note or medical file copies or
anything else that is not covered by OHIP. These prices are suggested
by the Ontario Medical Association.

Global accused Kamermans of taking mass sign-ups in hotel rooms. The
doctor says he does run mobile clinics in different communities and he
is allowed to see patients outside his office. Because the doctor is
dealing with gravely ill patients, they are not all able to travel to
see him. Visits outside of the clinic are not billed to OHIP.

On the income amount and the number of mobile clinics, Kamermans says
Global got the numbers wrong.

Laurie Few is the executive producer of the Global show 16x9 that
featured the doctor. She says in an email, "Global 16x9 stands by our
story aired March 17, 2012."

Kamermans said the show on Global was unfair.

"I'm a doctor and I'm trying to help people," Kamermans
says.

Sitting in his office in Coe Hill it's obvious he's upset. The office
is bright and there's lots of natural wood and big windows. There is
art on the walls and in the waiting room there's a homeopathy display
and brochures on breastfeeding. His degrees hang on the wall.

He says he knew this was going to be hard, but he believes fully in
the properties of marijuana and sees how it helps his patients.

Lori Stephenson is the office manager. She's firm but gentle with
patient after patient trying to see the doctor. She explains as best
she can the situation. No one is happy.

Stephenson says she thought it was crazy at first but after seeing all
the people who were going to such an effort to get legal access and
after seeing how it was helping, she changed her mind.

"We have seniors coming in who don't want their grandkids to know they
use marijuana," she says. "These are people who don't want to break
the law - they don't want to be judged."

For the past few months no one wanted to talk about what was
happening. After the raid things were tense. Mary Kamermans's hands
are red and peeling.

"I don't know what this is - stress," she says. "I'm nervous all the
time because I think the police are coming back."

Mary Kamermans cares for the patients who come into the clinic. She's
feeling victimized and she feels the weight of not being able to help
her patients.

"In the states, in Michigan, where Rob can also work, their act says
that the police cannot persecute a doctor for prescribing marijuana,"
she explains. "Health Canada put together their program and we got
involved and now the police come after us and our patients and it's up
to us to fight this."

And it is a fight.

Even though charges were never laid, Kamermans says officers call him
a druggie. Stephenson says the OPP follow her around and Mary
Kamermans says she's so uneasy in her own house after the raid and
after being told by the police that they were under surveillance;
she's nervous to take a shower.

"We haven't done anything wrong and I live in fear that they're going
to keep coming back," she says.

Contacting the media was a big step - especially after the bad
experience with Global. But last week something changed.

They got a call at the clinic from the partner of a patient. She was
dealing with chronic pain and had been on high doses of narcotics for
many years. Kamermans had consulted with her and she was waiting for
her paperwork.

She was going to get off the narcotics and use medical marijuana to
manager her illness.

On the day of the raid, her paperwork was ready to go out in the mail
in an Express Post envelope. The police took it. It has never been
returned.

The call that came in to the office last week was heart
breaking.

"Her partner called and said not to send the forms," Kamermans said.
"She went to sleep and she never woke up. I don't know for sure what
happened but there are 13,000 deaths each year from accidental
overdosing."

So now Kamermans is ready to talk. His patients are ready to talk and
he wants to get his life back. He wants to keep working with his patients.

In a letter he sent to Global Television he writes, "here we are doing
something that has the potential to help a great number and we are
being persecuted for it."

"One of the areas in which I feel strongly that we can make a big
difference is neurogenic pain, and the present rampant addiction to
opiates," Kamermans wrote in the letter.

This is becoming an area of specialty for Kamermans as more and more
of his patients are seeking assistance managing their chronic pain and
disease with medical marijuana as an alternative to opioids.

Kamermans is helping patients detox without methadone, he
says.

John is another patient of Kamermans and he's got a long list of
medical concerns. He's got arthritis, multiple spinal disorders and
digestive issues. The complicating list of ailments is helped by
anti-inflammatory medications but his stomach can't take the meds.

For 10 years he's been on fentanyl - a powerful synthetic opiate
analgesic similar to but more potent than morphine. He was getting
nervous about the long-term risks of opiate use and in addition, he
didn't think the drugs were working anymore. He wanted to try medical
marijuana and he wanted to get off the fentanyl.

"So my doctor said I could go on methadone and that there was a clinic
that I could try in Belleville and that was all he could do," John
says. "I had heard that methadone was more addictive than morphine so
I didn't want to do that so I tried stopping the drugs on my own."

John says the symptoms of withdrawal were worse than anything he has
ever experienced. There are hot flashes, sweating, abdominal pain,
cramping, he couldn't sleep and there were muscle spasms.

"It was like pain I'd never felt before and I couldn't sit still and I
couldn't get comfortable," John says.

"The marijuana is helping," John says. "Kamermans was more helpful
than any other doctor and he was honest about how hard it would be to
detox but I'm getting there."

"The marijuana is working on my symptoms - it's amazing what it can do
and I had no idea and I wish I had known before," John says.

John has a similar story to many of the doctor's patients. He was not
a recreational drug user. He didn't want to get high and he was
already struggling with how opiates made him feel. The patients that
Kamermans works with all say that they went to the school assemblies
and listened to their parents and the police who said this was a
dangerous drug.

But when their diseases made life difficult, they did what many
desperate people do. They asked friends and family, they went online
and they kept finding that there might be something to this drug. The
drug worked for them, but now they have to decide what to do next.

The doctor and his wife will continue to try to access their patient
files and hope that the OPP will back off. They say they are not
possessing or selling drugs.

"I don't even smoke the stuff," Kamermans says. "This is a gift. This
is medicine."

The Kamermanses will also have to wait for their hearing at the
college where they will have to respond to complaints from another
doctor who they say didn't want his patient approved.

The Kamermanses continue to hope Health Canada will tighten up their
guidelines and give clear directions to physicians in the programs. If
there are specific criteria that need to be followed the Kamermanses
will do that, they say. They just need the direction from Health Canada.

As for the patients, who are trying to live normal despite their
ailments or diseases, many are living in fear because of the
information the police have.

So what's a patient to do? Go without the medicine or break the law
and support the black market?

Kamermans says he has been traumatized by this process. He believes he
has suffered defamation of character and that the police are trying to
ruin his practice and his life.

"I'm a doctor and I help people," he says. "I do not think that it is
fair that we have to live in fear of retaliation from the police when
we are trying to do something useful for society."

OPP sergeant Kristine Rae is handling media relations for the case and
in an interview on April 20 she said that the investigation is still
on going and that no charges have been laid.

Rae says she is not aware of how the case is being handled locally but
did say there are thousands of pages of paper that still have to be
investigated. She says patients are not the target of the
investigation but confirms medical records were seized.

Rae also said she was not aware of the contents of the warrant that
was used in the raid on Jan. 26. 
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