Registered Letter - Without Prejudice

Montreal, June 6th 1997

Dr Roch Bernier, m.d.
President
College of Physicians
2170, boul. René-Lévesque Ouest
Montreal
H3H 2T8

Dr Bernier,

I would like to thank you for your prompt response to my query concerning the importance of obtaining a patient’s hereditary background. The reason I asked you this question is related to the fact that I am an adopted person that like more than a million people in Quebec is partly or totally ignorant of his own heredity. This number is somewhat surprising since it means that one person out of every seven is directly concerned with this problem. In Quebec, between the years 1930 and 1970, 300 000 children became wards of the state and, of that number, 200 000 were eventually adopted while the others grew up either in institutions or in foster homes. In the light of these facts it is no longer surprising that more than a million people have incomplete medical records since many of the persons adopted during that period are now parents and in many cases grandparents, passing on their lack of knowledge of their own heredity to their children and grandchildren. But there is worse since, in many cases, people give their doctors the hereditary background of their adoptive family as being their own not knowing that they themselves have been adopted or are descendants of adoptees. You might be one of those persons!

The Duplessis era generated many social problems in Quebec and instead of dealing with those problems we decided, as a society, to sweep everything under the rug. The legislator has even written laws in order to see no evil: everything is secret in adoption including ones hereditary background. In so doing the legislator is risking the lives of many citizens. How many surgical operations were or were not carried out on the basis of an incomplete or false hereditary background? How can someone prescribe drugs when one out of every seven people is ignorant of his hereditary background?

In a democracy, it is the voters that delegate the power of the people to the legislator. Therefore, the legislator does not have the right to write laws that lie, either directly or indirectly, to voters. If the legislator chooses to do so he exceeds his mandate and undermines the legitimacy of the state. In the case that is described here, the legislator created a legal system where 15% of the medical records are either incomplete or false. The College of Physicians must denounce such a legal system. Failing to do so might result in costly legal settlements for many medical doctors in Quebec. Furthermore, many insurance companies might refuse to cover doctors that neglect to inform their patients of this state of affairs.