Pubdate: Fri, 05 Jul 2013
Source: Bancroft This Week (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 OSPREY Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.bancroftthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3853
Author: Barb Shaw

DOCTOR FORCED TO SELL PROPERTY

There's a for sale sign up in front of the medical centre in Coe Hill.

Since 2007 Doctor Rob Kamermans and his wife Mary, a registered nurse,
have built the clinic as part of their plan to offer accessible health
services in North Hastings. This is an area they call home.

Since the clinic opened it has been slowly growing but the high costs
of operating a clinic and employing staff required Dr. Kamermans to
also work shifts in an emergency room in Sturgeon Falls and in high
need sites for Health Force Ontario.

"I became a doctor to serve the community," said Dr. Kamermans.
"That's who I am."

But since part of serving the community caught the eye of law
enforcement, the doctor and his wife have been struggling through a
nightmare of raids, arrests and confusing charges. With a trial
looming and legal bills mounting, their property in Coe Hill had to go
up for sale.

"This does not mean I am closing my practice," Dr. Kamermans said in
an interview on June 14. "I'm just unable to meet my financial
obligations. We hope to continue renting office space and continue
seeing our patients."

But many of the patients who say Dr. Kamermans and his wife Mary
returned their quality of life and brought back hope have been
referred to other doctors.

Dr. Kamermans has a passion for alternative therapies and he says he
has always supported his patients when they wanted more choice. He
encouraged patients to seek out chiropractic care, acupuncture and
homeopathy.

Dr. Kamermans also has a strong connection with aboriginal healing
methods and he is not a fan of opioids. So it was no surprise in 2009
when Dr. Kamermans was asked to sign a Health Canada B1 form for a
patient. The form supports a request by the patient to access medical
marijuana through the Health Canada Marijuana Medical Access
Regulations program.

Dr. Kamermans was aware of the benefits of medical marijuana so he
filled out the form. The patient had one of the illnesses that Health
Canada described and other therapies were not working.

Once the form is filled out by a doctor it still has to be screened
and approved by Health Canada. The doctor's role is to assess the
patient to determine if there is a medical condition that would fit
with the Health Canada guidelines.

"The B1 form is only a recommendation. My signature is not an approval
- - it is only support," explains Dr. Kamermans. "My heart is to look
after people."

By 2010 Dr. Kamermans had more sick and injured adults asking for his
help. By 2012 he had signed around 4,000 B1 forms.

According to Health Canada's website there are now more than 28,000
Canadians authorized to possess dried medical marijuana through the
MMAR.

With the numbers of medical users on the rise and law enforcement
focused on the war on drugs the police wanted names of users. Health
Canada refused stating privacy laws.In Ontario patients are protected
under the Personal Health Information Privacy Act (PHIPA 2004).

With no access to patient names, addresses and other details an
investigation was launched. Dr. Kamermans believes he was the focus of
the investigation because, as he says, he was an easy target due to
the number of clients he was caring for.

The Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau (OCEB), with the of the Ontario
Provincial Police (OPP) Anti-Rackets Branch, Health Fraud
Investigation Unit and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
launched "Project Thorne" in November of 2011 that focused on fraud
and forged medical forms in relation to Health Canada MMAR documents.
And after two months of surveillance, the OPP and RCMP showed up at
the Coe Hill clinic.

"The practice was transparent," Dr. Kamermans says. "This whole thing
could have been accomplished by a knock on the door. I would have had
a conversation and answered questions."

And on Jan. 26, 2012, Dr. Kamermans did get to answer some questions
after a loud knock on the door.

The knock came from some 20 officers at his home and office who issued
a warrant related to trafficking. The doctor does not remember being
arrested or charged. He was cuffed and taken in to the OPP station in
Bancroft where he was accused of being a drug dealer.

During the raid patient files were removed and to date they have never
been returned. A memory stick was sent to the doctor with photocopies
but it made treating patients difficult.

"The OPP were obviously fishing," Dr. Kamermans said. "They took all
our charts."

"We need to treat all patients," Dr. Kamermans said. "As physicians it
is our right and obligation to treat with the safest, most effective
means at our disposal. MMAR is Health Canada's program, not mine.
Cannabis has an excellent safety factor and there have been no deaths
attributed to the use of medical marijuana."

After the police raid, Dr. Kamermans made a decision to stop signing
B1 forms. He now refers his patients to other doctors who are willing
to take the risk of signing. And it is a risk.

On Aug. 15, 2012 the OPP went in to the emergency room of the hospital
in Sturgeon Falls and arrested Dr. Kamermans. He was in the middle of
treating a patient.

Being cuffed while with a patient, he says, was not only unnecessary
but it also cost him his job.

"The OPP could have asked me to come to the station with my lawyer,"
Dr. Kamermans said. "They [the hospital] can't count on the police not
coming back. This was all part of the police working very hard to make
us look bad."

Dr. Kamermans was charged with fraud (three counts), utter forged
documents (5 counts), possession of property obtained by crime and
laundering proceeds of crime. His wife Mary Kamermans, a registered
nurse, has the same charges but with one less count for utter forged
documents.

"This is both disappointing and ridiculous," Dr. Kamermans said in an
interview in April. "The people who came to us did not want to go to
the black market. This program was supposed to make the black market
smaller and that's a good thing right? And we don't understand how
they charged Mary when she wasn't even able to sign the forms."

Since the arrest last August Dr. Kamermans has been trying to keep his
life together. He still goes in to the clinic every day at 6 a.m. to
work on charts and to work with the rest of his patients.

He refers anyone who needs a renewal to other physicians and the
patients pay the new doctor the fee for the paperwork. Dr. Kamermans
used to charge between $100 and $250 for the B1 form and now the new
doctors are charging $600. That's tough for patients living on
pensions or other disability funding.

And other doctors are continuing to support the program. At the end of
January 2012 when Dr. Kamermans stopped signing the B1 forms there
were 13,781 Canadians authorised to possess dried marijuana. By the
end of December 2012 the number had grown to 28,115.

Dr. Kamermans still thinks medical marijuana is an excellent option
for some patients.

"I am a reluctant leader of this whole medical marijuana thing," he
says. "It is disheartening to spend this time to clear ourselves."

And it is disheartening. The patients who felt supported and cared for
by Dr. Kamermans spread the word online about the man in Coe Hill who
helped them manage pain, get off narcotics and increase their quality
of life. Dr. Kamermans thinks this is part of why he was targeted.

"Patients should always have choice," Kamermans said. "We gave them a
choice and Health Canada gave them an approval."

Dr. Kamermans and his wife will be in court this October facing
charges. The legal fees have been massive, with no end in sight. Dr.
Kamermans can't work in the ER and he can't afford to maintain his
property in Coe Hill.

"It is disheartening for us to be put in this situation," Dr.
Kamermans said. "We felt we were making a beneficial impact on the
community."

OPP Sergeant Kristine Rae was contacted for comment on June 24. In a
telephone interview she said she did not recall the details of the
case and requested an email be sent to her. She did not respond to
either of the emails sent over the next week.
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MAP posted-by: Matt