I would like to remind all patients that receiving good, competent and ethical care from your physician or nurse is nothing special or out of the ordinary. Physicians and nurses, not only are already very well paid and financially compensated for the good service that they provide to you and your family, they are also obliged to provide that by their respective codes of professional conduct.

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While I do understand that you may feel grateful for their good service, I also would like to remind you all that it is their professional obligation to offer you their care, their professional expertise and their services. To the contrary, accepting a gift from a patient for merely having offered what they are obliged to offer by their code of professional conduct, shows their inability to provide adequate, honest, and professional care.

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As a patient, you have THE RIGHT to demand this care. You are already paying for this care through your taxes. You do not and you should not feel in debt towards any physician or any nurse. Offering a gift to a healthcare professional is detrimental to the dignity of both the patient and the physician or nurse who accepts it. Accepting a gift destroys the purity and the nobility of the principles of ethics that are the foundation of the medical and nursing professions. The moment a physician accepts the gift, their image has become stained with corruption and bribe - hardly making that professional look so good and decent after all.

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I am aware that in many countries around the world this may be common practice, and that some physician and nurses even here in Canada may take advantage of this, especially from patients who come from a cultural background and setting where bribery is practiced in order to receive good healthcare. These unprofessional physicians and nurses accept these gifts for the sake of their own ego only, and do not represent good standards of ethics and morality.

 

For these reasons, I ask all patients of CRMC to refrain from presenting gifts of any kind and of any financial value to any member of staff. You are entitled to the highest standards of care and medical/nursing attention whether you express your gratitude or not. You do not need to and you should not bring gifts to our physicians and nurses or any other staff member. If you truly want to honour our work and our clinic for a particular and outstanding service that you received while a patient of ours, please send a donation (even of just $5) to the Alzheimer's Society of Calgary by following this link. When you send them the donation, let them know that you do this in honour of a particular physician or nurse or in honour of CRMC as a whole for having offered to you outstanding service.

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Please, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, offer a gift of any kind and of any value to any member of staff. If a physician or nurse is found to have accepted a gift from a patient, we will immediately terminate their contract, and they will be denounced and reported to the pertinent professional college for disciplinary procedures that may result in that individual losing his/her license to practice as a phyician or nurse.

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Thank you all for your cooperation,

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Dawid Karczewski

Clinical Manager