BC Ministry of Health- College Amalgamations
The British Columbian (BC) Ministry of Health is in the midst of restructuring the regulatory bodies that oversee allied health care professionals.
In BC, massage therapy is a regulated profession, meaning that every therapist must carry a licence by obtaining an education from a certified program, completing board exams and becoming registered by the supervisory college. This ensures that the health care provided is in the best interest of the general public and that therapists are accountable for their professional conduct.
Many other health care practitioners, including optometrists, chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists and psychologists, are part of regulatory bodies and operate under the Health Professions Act. Currently, the majority of health professions have separate regulatory colleges, but it has been recommended by the Cayton report and the Steering Committee to Modernize Health Care (CMTBC, 2023) that the BC Ministry of Health amalgamate these bodies.
This causes concern for massage therapists in BC because the other professions that are recommended for amalgamation under the suggested name of Regulatory College of Complementary and Alternative Health and Care Professionals include chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists and traditional Chinese mediine practitioners. The scope and education of each of these professions is vastly different and it would be a challenge to fairly represent and advocate for the needs of each profession.
Fewer representatives and larger colleges may mean more streamlined processes for the provincial health authority (Steering Committee 2020), but it comes at the cost of decreased representation and mixed agendas for allied health care practitioners like massage therapists.
References
Cayton, Harry. (2018, December). An inquiry into the performance of the College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia and the Health Care Professions Act. Government of BC. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/health/practitioner-pro/professional-regulation/cayton-report-college-of-dental-surgeons-2018.pdf
College of Massage Therapists of BC. (2023, May 3). Ministry of Health sets timeline for college amalgamations. CMTBC. https://www.cmtbc.ca/news/ministry-of-health-sets-timeline-for-college-amalgamations/
Steering Committee. (2020, August). Recommendations to modernize the provincial health profession regulartory framework. Government of BC. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/health/practitioner-pro/professional-regulation/recommendations-to-modernize-regulatory-framework.pdf
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