At one time Ontario’s doctors had to weigh the desire to help others against what was required by law. Under Ontario law, doctors were expected to render assistance to someone who was injured or in distress. A physician should step forward, if no other member of the medical profession had become available.
The original law
That first law did not mandate the stopping at an accident scene. Yet one of Ontario’s cities did elect to have such a provision of the Good Samaritan Law. As per The Canadian Medical Association code of ethics, the doctors have to render help to any accident victim.
Details of the Good Samaritan Law
Doctors must stop at an accident scene, in order to help any injured victim. By the same token, those doctors that act like good Samaritans enjoy a special amount of protection. Each of them is protected from liability, due to medical negligence. A similar law has now been passed in Ontario.Doctors in Ontario are not required to stop at an accident scene. However, any of them that do choose to become good Samaritans enjoy protection from liability. None of them can be charged with medical negligence, if the treated victim does not recover as expected. However, the next of kin can contact with Personal Injury Lawyer in Richmond Hill to get the desired compensation.
Ontario’s law calls on physicians to copy the spirit of a true good Samaritan. As explained in the Bible, the original Samaritan’s actions displayed a response to a moral duty. Two other men had passed the victim that was helped by the Samaritan’s actions. Both of those two men that exhibited non-Samaritan behavior had seen no reason to devote some of their time to assisting that one poor fellow.
An exception in this particular provision
Out of respect for a physician’s morally-based decision, the legal code includes a provision that frees such a physician from worries about a possible charge of medical negligence. Yet that same provision does exclude certain physicians. It excludes any doctor that might choose to inflict real harm on a victim, while pretending to assume a Samaritan-like role.
Legislators did not want to condone the actions of someone that has spotted an enemy in trouble. Such a person could pretend to be a doctor and harm that same enemy, instead of helping him. Later, the same criminal could gain possession of false documents, in an effort to prove that he was a doctor.
An attempt to honor someone with false documents would seem to mock the man that became the first of all the respected Samaritans. He did not have any special documents, certificates or even a distinguishing set of clothes. Still, he acted in a manner that has been praised repeatedly for years.