SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE – ONTARIO
DIVISIONAL COURT
RE: Gladys M. Segura Mosquera, Applicant
AND
Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, Respondent (moving party)
BEFORE: The Honourable Justice C.T. Hackland
COUNSEL: The Applicant, in person
David P. Jacobs and Steven G. Bosnick, for the Respondent Health Professions Appeal and Review Board
Sara Kushner and Jonathan Nehmetallah, for Dr. Michael Jacob Feldman, M.D.
HEARD: December 8, 2021 (by Zoom videoconference)
ENDORSEMENT
Endorsement
1The applicant, Ms. Gladys M. Segura Mosquera, seeks judicial review of two decisions of the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board (the “Board”), the first of which upheld a decision of the Inquiries, Complaints, and Reports Committee (the “ICRC”) of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (the “College”), and the second of which denied reconsideration of the Board’s initial decision. The ICRC’s decisions concerned a complaint by the applicant against the proposed respondent, Dr. Michael Jacob Feldman.
2In this motion, the Board moves: to add Dr. Feldman as a party respondent; to seal parts of the Board’s record of proceedings; to prohibit any person from publishing or broadcasting the name and/or information tending to identify the non-party, and to strike the applicant’s affidavit and certain parts of the applicant’s application record and factum.
Party Status and Sealing Order
3The applicant is self-represented and may have found some of the procedural issues raised herein to be challenging. At the commencement of this motion, the court engaged the applicant in a discussion of the need to grant Dr. Feldman’s request to be made a party to this application because he was a party to and indeed was the subject of the complaint hearing before the ICRC at the College. Similarly, in the Board’s record of proceedings, the medical record of a third party with a similar name to the applicant was inadvertently included and this information must be sealed, and a non-publication order made, to protect this person’s privacy. The applicant was in agreement with this relief and the requested orders are granted.
Motion to Strike
4As noted, the Board seeks to strike the applicant’s affidavit and certain parts of her application record and factum, essentially on the basis that the facts included in those documents were not before the ICRC or the Board, are not properly raised on judicial review and are irrelevant to the issues.
5The applicant’s complaint considered by the ICRC and reviewed by the Board pertained to her interaction with Dr. Feldman on one occasion in the emergency department of a Toronto area hospital. This interaction was the focus of the ICRC’s review, and properly so. The applicant also complained about the conduct of nine other physicians who had treated her on other occasions. The ICRC wrote that it would release separate decisions in respect of the other nine physicians. The ICRC determined that no action would be taken against Dr. Feldman.
6It is apparent from the applicant’s materials that she wishes to place before the court her views on the shortcomings of the Canadian health care system and the system’s failure to effectively treat her mental health problems and other issues. She addresses her immigration issues, her health care in Columbia, her complaints about medical care received in Québec and in various Ontario hospitals on a variety of different occasions. She also refers to other policy issues, unrelated to health care, which she has brought before the court in other proceedings.
7The applicant’s affidavit is struck in its entirety as it is manifestly irrelevant to the issues which were before the ICRC and the Board and attempts to raise broad based policy issues about the health care system.
8The same observations apply to the applicant’s Application Record, which contains documents downloaded from various websites, her immigration documentation and a swatch of other material having nothing to do with the ICRC’s or the Board’s deliberations concerning her complaint. I order that all of the material in the application record which the Board seeks to have struck will be struck except for the contents of Tabs 3, 18(a), 20 and 21.
9I decline to strike the applicant’s factum. It purports to raise the same extraneous and irrelevant matters referred to above. However, in my view it contains a manageable summary of what the applicant intends to say to the hearing panel, and it may assist the panel to have the factum available for their assessment and review.
10An order may be submitted for my signature in accordance with this endorsement and the applicant’s approval on the order will be dispensed with.
Costs
11Costs of this motion are reserved to the hearing panel.
Date: December 21, 2021
CITATION: Mosquera v. Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, 2021 ONSC 8365
COURT FILE NO.: DC-20-2588
DATE: 20211221
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
RE: Gladys M. Segura Mosquera, Applicant
AND
Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, Respondent (moving party)
COUNSEL: The Applicant, in person
David P. Jacobs and Steven G. Bosnick, for the Respondent Health Professions Appeal and Review Board
Sara Kushner and Jonathan Nehmetallah, for Dr. Michael Jacob Feldman, M.D.
ENDORSEMENT
Justice Charles T. Hackland
Released: December 21, 2021