Toronto Star Referrer

Sleep doctor allegedly compared fighting mandates to resisting Nazis

Physician accused of charging up to $300 for exemption letters

KENYON WALLACE AND MAY WARREN

An Ontario doctor alleged to have written improper COVID-19 vaccine exemptions for hundreds of dollars a pop also reportedly told patients that opposing vaccine mandates was like being in the resistance against the Nazis and that half the people who get vaccinated will die.

That’s according to recent court filings in a case brought to the Divisional Court by Dr. Celeste Jean Thirlwell against her own professional regulator, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Thirlwell, a psychiatrist who also practises sleep medicine, was investigated by the college last year over reports that she was issuing and helping individuals obtain COVID vaccine exemptions. In November, the college ordered Thirlwell not to issue any exemptions for COVID vaccines, face masks or testing for the disease and, among other things, to consent to allow the college to view her OHIP billings.

Thirlwell objected to making her OHIP billings available and asked the Divisional Court to quash the order. Last week, the court dismissed her application and slapped her with more than $8,000 in costs.

The college has not held a formal hearing into her conduct or the allegations.

The Star attempted to reach Thirlwell at her Wilson Avenue office in North York for comment, but was told by the secretary that she does not come into the office and that no contact information was available for her. A receptionist told the Star upon a second attempt that Thirlwell is “working from home.”

Her lawyer, Neil M. Abramson, told the Star that the Divisional Court hearing was not a hearing into Thirlwell’s conduct, but merely about whether the college should have “carte blanche access” to her OHIP billings.

“Indeed, she’s never even been charged with anything. She’s not had a hearing and she’s certainly not been convicted,” said Abramson, head of litigation at the firm Torkin Manes.

“It’s never been alleged that she billed OHIP for any of the vaccine exemptions which she’s alleged to have provided and indeed, there isn’t even an OHIP billing code which she could provide, which she could use, which she could rely upon to bill OHIP. Doesn’t exist.”

He added that Thirlwell has instructed him to seek leave to appeal the Divisional Court’s ruling to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

In rejecting Thirlwell’s application, the Divisional Court provided a window into the college’s investigation that reveals a string of allegations against the doctor that began last fall, including that she was charging up to $300 for an exemption letter, that she made bizarre comments about vaccine mandates in public, and that she was peddling conspiracy theories to patients.

The college’s court filings allege that in the fall of 2021 it received information from “several sources,” including Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, that Thirlwell was issuing “vague” medical exemption letters that did not explain what specifically precluded these individuals from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

“This suggested a generalized approach to vaccine exemptions for profit, rather than an individualized assessment as to whether the vaccine was medically contraindicated for each patient,” the court said in its ruling.

The ruling also states that the college received a phone call and letter in October alleging that during a train ride from Ottawa to Kingston, Thirlwell was heard taking calls on her cellphone about medical exemptions. She was overheard saying she’d heard “they are gassing people in Australia,” advising the person on the other end of the line to consider themselves “like a Nazi resistor” and that “the government will only care when 15 per cent of people have died.”

The court also noted that the college had information from one of its sources that suggested Thirlwell had told patients that 50 per cent of the people who will get vaccinated will die.

“There was evidence to suggest that her motivation, in providing the exemptions, was not founded on a concern for the health of the patients. Rather it sprang from a personal, even ideological perspective, on the actions of the state (in this case Ontario and Canada) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the court said. “There is no other way to understand the alleged references to Nazi Germany, the assertion that government will only care when 15 per cent of the people have died and that she has heard they are gassing people in Australia.”

Abramson noted that none of the allegations in the decision have been tested in court. He said he does not see how it is relevant for Thirlwell to produce her OHIP billings and questioned how that could be required to protect the public.

“Isn’t that just the overreaching long arm of Big Brother?” he said. “It seems to me that it is.”

In dismissing Thirlwell’s application, the court said the college’s access to OHIP records was reasonable to ensure the college could monitor the doctor’s activities by comparing her billings to her patient logs, which she was also required to share with the college.

The province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said last fall that legitimate medical exemptions to COVID vaccines are very rare and usually only granted for two reasons: a severe allergic reaction to any ingredients in the vaccine (which should be confirmed by an allergist); and pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, or myocarditis, inflammation of the heart itself.

Thirlwell graduated from McMaster University in 2000, according to the college’s website. She was barred from issuing or renewing prescriptions for narcotics and narcotic preparations in October 2019 as a result of an investigation into whether she engaged in professional misconduct, and/or is incompetent in her sleep medicine practice.

The college issued her a formal caution last July after she wrote a letter on behalf of a former patient that reflected “poor judgment and professionalism and a significant lack of appreciation of boundaries.”

According to a bio on Thirlwell’s sleep clinic’s website, she is also a yoga teacher.

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2022-05-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

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