Statement on Military Physicians (April 2021)

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FMRAC members understand the ability to provide health services using telehealth to be essential to the execution of the Defense mandate which requires the military to send its members to places where specialist care, mental health care or care in their language of choice may not be otherwise available.

Canadian Forces Health Services (CFHS) physicians (uniformed, public servants and contracted) operate within a federal jurisdiction when they are providing care on behalf of CFHS, whether they are working within Canada or abroad.
Accordingly:

1. 1) Where a CFHS physician provides services via telehealth strictly to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members who are not co-located in that same provincial or territorial jurisdiction, FMRAC members understand and agree that the CFHS physician is practicing within the federal jurisdiction, and
2. The following medical regulatory authorities acknowledge that providing telehealth in this way is not in violation of their telehealth policy(*):

a. College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia;
b. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta;
c. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan;
d. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba;
e. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario;
f. Collège des Médecins du Québec;
g. College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick;
h. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Prince Edward Island;
i. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia;
j. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador
k. Yukon Medical Council
l. North West Territories
m. Nunavut

(*) recognizing that some MRAs do not, or not yet, have a detailed telehealth policy