The door was locked in a doctor’s office in northern Etobico after a crackdown by a provincial regulator found that the doctor had falsified some 42,000 procedures for which the Ontario public health system paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But questions remain as to whether Dr. Ayokunle Fagbemigun will ever be ordered to pay the full amount he has paid to OHIP, Ontario’s state health insurance, for four years, with an Ontario political party calling for immediate action.
“This is public money that is being drained from OHIP. The Ontario Greens call on the provincial government to act immediately, using the specific tools at its disposal, in particular through the Board of Appeals and the Health Services Review, “a statement from the Ontario Green Party said on Friday.
“Ontario’s health care system is already stretched. “The Ford government must act quickly to recover funds lost through fraudulent procedures,” the statement said.
It is unclear what steps OHIP is taking now to recover the money. Ministry officials answered some questions but said they could not answer others during an ongoing investigation, although the investigation appears to have ended with a ruling by the Ontario Disciplinary Tribunal for Doctors and Surgeons on Thursday.
“Dr. Fagbemigun stole from Ontario’s publicly funded health care system and harmed patients for his own financial gain,” the disciplinary committee wrote, fining him a maximum of $ 35,000 and estimating about $ 72,000 in costs.
READ MORE: Ontario doctor charges 42,000 tests he failed to do, investigation finds
The panel expressed its willingness to pay the public before awarding the costs – and said that if further action could be taken, it would be through OHIP and the courts.
In 2019, the Ontario government gave the Health Appeals and Review Board the power to hear OHIP’s requests for reimbursement from doctors.
But according to his registrar, all the cases he has heard on the subject are in fact doctors trying to recover funds from OHIP, and none with OHIP trying to recover funds from doctors.
The panel found that Fagbemigun charged for about 42,000 tests and procedures from 2014 to 2018, which it could not do because it did not buy consumables.
This undated image shows Dr. Ayokunle Fagbemigun.
He also sent real patients for tests they did not need, including a drug test on a nine-year-old child and the application of eight pregnancy tests to a non-sexually active woman, and charged for a recommendation from another organization, the panel found.
Fagbemigun’s office is in the Etobicoke-North area, and Prime Minister Doug’s office is visible across the street.
No one was there when CTV News visited, or in the Ford constituency. The call to the phone number on the door led to a message saying, “The mailbox belonging to Doug Ford, MPP, is full.
In the office of Robin Martin, who was recently a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, an employee received a message – the last of several messages left by CTV News.
A spokesman for the prime minister’s office said the elected officials were in the middle of a transition period after the election, in which former Health Minister Christine Elliott did not run again.
In the doctor’s office, patients came at regular intervals to see their doctor, but could not be seen.
“I should have seen him today. We don’t know what’s going on, “said Iris Omo.
She and an attendant turned to the experience with other doctors in the building.
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