CERTIFICATION-WHICH WILL HAVE TO BE RENEWED EVERY YEAR—
is already underway, with 1,000 practitioners having already passed their
safety tests and another 1,000 waiting to take the test.
British Columbia put its
own set of rules in place in April 2003.
The passing of the
Traditional Chinese Medicine Act in 2006 created the self-regulatory body which
will now demand that every practitioner register with the college after passing
a series of tests or displaying that they have equivalent experience after having
seen at least 2,000 patients in the last five years.
The new regulations will
ensure practitioners are penalized for inappropriate practice. Fines as high as
$25,000
Emily Cheung, the college's
registrar, said the new regulations will allow the public to be assured that
every practitioner treating them has met certain standards.
"Right now, there are
no rules or policies and individuals can practice however they choose,"
said Cheung. The public does not know whether a person is qualified or not
because anyone can call themselves a traditional Chinese medicine doctor."
"At this time, it is
hard to distinguish good programs from bad.
With regulation, I do hope that the Ministry of Training, Colleges and
Universities will start to register qualified programs in schools."
The Canadian Press
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/traditional-chinese-medicine-now-regulated-in-ontario-1.1336269
