When fertility doctors face potential disciplinary action, it’s not easy for patients to find out

The Investigative Journalism Bureau found nine doctors — several working for the same company — with current or past restrictions on their licences

Four doctors who work with NewLife Fertility have had restrictions put on their licences. Photo by Postmedia

Article content

Fertility Inc. is a five-part series by the Investigative Journalism Bureau that delves into the Wild West of the egg-freezing industry, its aggressive marketing, the high costs and the chances of an eventual successful pregnancy.

Article content

An Ontario fertility clinic chain employs at least four doctors who currently have restrictions on their medical licences due to previous serious misconduct or allegations of misconduct.

Article content

Article content

Article content

These include a physician once at the centre of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, and one who faced 16 counts of professional misconduct in another province.

Article content

Article content

But patients who attend NewLife Fertility’s 10 clinics, stretching from Hamilton to Markham, Ont., may not know about the past infractions or alleged infractions of some physicians who work at some of its sites. Although such restrictions are posted online by the regulatory body overseeing Ontario doctors, fertility clinics — including those that market egg freezing — are not required to post this information on their own websites.

Article content

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) analyzed the backgrounds of more than 260 physicians who work at clinics known to offer egg freezing, in vitro fertilization and other fertility services.

Article content

It found nine doctors who had current or past restrictions placed on their licences by provincial regulatory bodies. Eight of these specialists still work at clinics in Ontario or Quebec, but the IJB found no mention of their disciplinary issues on the clinics’ websites.

Article content

Five of these doctors are or were employed by NewLife Fertility.

Article content

Article content

NewLife Fertility CEO and medical director Dr. Samuel Solimon said the issues faced by its physicians with Ontario’s medical college “are public and are not related to our clinic. These are issues that have been addressed by the college and resolved.”

Article content

Article content

A sixth physician, who works at Lakeridge Fertility east of Toronto, was cautioned twice by the regulatory body for poor judgment in the deaths of two babies during labour.

Article content

Lakeridge said the involvement of Ontario’s medical college in the doctor’s case referred to obstetrics and had “nothing to do with” gynecological practice. There were “no concerns” over the doctor while she worked at the Lakeridge facility, said Dr. Andrew Browning, the clinic’s medical director.

Article content

A physician at Clinique OVO in Quebec was disciplined for removing a patient’s fallopian tube without consent. OVO did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Article content

A doctor now at IVF Canada in Toronto was cautioned for failing to protect a patient’s confidentiality. IVF Canada did not respond to requests for comment. And a physician at a different Toronto-area clinic was disciplined for improperly allowing an egg donor to learn the identity of the woman who received her egg.

Article content

Alana Cattapan, the Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Reproduction at the University of Waterloo, said patients deserve more information from regulatory bodies, such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).

Article content

“The complaint mechanism at the (CPSO), and the way that they investigate these complaints and make the information available to patients, has really failed in the area of assisted reproduction,” said Cattapan.

Article content

CPSO spokesperson Mickey Cirak said the college’s oversight applies exclusively to “registrants and the practice of medicine in Ontario,” and “does not extend to employment decisions or the business or marketing practices of clinics.”

Article content

At present, the only way Ontario patients can check the backgrounds of clinic doctors is by searching the CPSO’s online registry. Through the registry, provincial colleges oversee doctor registration, the quality of care, and discipline for all physicians, regardless of whether they work at hospitals or private clinics.

Article content

Article content

Alana Cattapan, Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Reproduction at the University of Waterloo, says the CPSO’s complaint procedure has failed in the area of assisted reproduction.

Article content

Public disclosure of physician discipline or allegations of misconduct “is not made through clinics,” Cirak said in an email. If a disciplinary decision takes the extra step of requiring it to be shared beyond the CPSO website, then “physicians themselves must inform patients of any licence restrictions.”

Article content

***

Article content

Among the physicians employed by NewLife Fertility is Dr. Salim Haiderali Daya, who normally works at the NewLife Mississauga location.

Article content

The NewLife website does not mention a class-action lawsuit involving at least 189 patients that resulted in a multi-million-dollar settlement in 2007 against Daya and Hamilton Health Sciences, where he worked at the time.

Article content

The saga began in June 2003 when the hospital asked Daya to stop performing a surgery it deemed “unnecessary or inappropriate,” and which it said could scar the uterus and cause infertility. In March 2004, the hospital said it had reviewed Daya’s cases and contacted patients who had undergone the outdated surgery in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Article content

Shortly after, Daya resigned from the hospital and the plaintiffs began legal action, accusing Daya of having been negligent for performing the surgery and the hospital of negligence as his employer. While the allegations were never tested in court, a judge approved a settlement to the plaintiffs of just under $10 million.

Article content

Article content

In 2006, the CPSO placed restrictions on his medical licence: he must obtain a second opinion prior to performing certain uterine surgeries, and notify the CPSO before carrying out any unsupervised procedures. The restrictions remain in effect.

Article content

In 2018, the CPSO cautioned him after a patient complained he placed his hands on her abdomen and said he would “sprinkle some magic dust on her” for a successful embryo transfer. The patient also accused Daya of asking if he could have one of her embryos.

Article content

Daya told the CPSO he had thought there was a “friendly rapport” with the patient, but said he “deeply regrets the discomfort” he caused. The matter did not proceed to a disciplinary hearing, after he voluntarily sought help from a communication coach, according to a CPSO summary.

Article content

Daya did not respond to repeated requests for comment. NewLife did not directly respond to questions about Daya.

Article content

A second fertility specialist working at NewLife from its Mississauga and Brampton locations, Dr. Faez Faruqi, surrendered his Quebec medical licence in 2023 after an investigation into 16 counts of professional misconduct at a Montreal fertility clinic. A Quebec disciplinary tribunal “found the consequences and risk to the public from his conduct to be considerable.”

Article content

According to documents posted by CPSO officials in Ontario, a Quebec tribunal found Faruqi paid four donors for their eggs. And it concluded the website of Faruqi’s Montreal-based clinic was “reckless” for linking to an American clinic that promoted paid egg donations. In Canada, eggs may only be voluntarily donated, not sold.

Article content

In December 2025, a CPSO disciplinary tribunal concluded that Faruqi’s actions in Quebec constituted “provincial misconduct” in Ontario as well. The CPSO suspended his licence in December 2025 until February 2026, and ordered him to pay $6,000 in costs.

Article content

His licence remains restricted while he completes mandatory ethics and boundaries training, but he was able to return to practising medicine in Ontario on Feb. 2, 2026.

Article content

Faruqui did not respond to multiple requests for comment. NewLife did not directly respond to questions about Faruqui.

Article content

A third NewLife specialist with a restricted licence, Dr. Jeremy Churchill Wong, undertook in 2023 to post a sign in all practice locations, including waiting, examination and consulting rooms, that informs patients: “You may request that a third party be present for all intimate examinations.”

Article content

Article content

This came after the CPSO investigated his obstetrics practice in response to a patient complaint. Wong also undertook to renew his education on boundary violations; on how to drape patients with a sheet in a “sensitive” way; and on a procedure that involves clinicians putting their fingers inside the cervix to induce labour. The matter did not proceed to a disciplinary hearing.

Article content

An IJB reporter visited the NewLife Scarborough location where Wong works and found the sign in the waiting room. Wong’s name was not included on the warning.

Article content

Wong did not respond to multiple requests for comment. NewLife did not directly respond to questions about Wong.

Article content

A fourth NewLife fertility physician, Dr. Samuel Ko, works out of NewLife’s Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Brampton and Concord locations. He had his licence restricted in August 2024 after the CPSO launched an investigation into whether he engaged in professional misconduct or was incompetent in his practice. He is allowed to perform obstetrics at his office but is no longer permitted to engage in obstetrics in a hospital setting, his CPSO profile indicates.

Article content

Article content

As a result of an unspecified CPSO probe, Ko undertook to renew his education on ”the symptoms and signs of fetal and maternal distress, the management of postpartum hemorrhage and hemorrhagic shock, medical recordkeeping, and communication with the clinical team.” The matter did not proceed to a disciplinary hearing.

Article content

Ko said his CPSO matter was not “disciplinary” in nature. “I entered into a voluntary undertaking to restrict my obstetrical practice to only office-based obstetrics. There is no restriction at all on my gynecological practices, which includes fertility medicine,” he said.

Article content

A fifth fertility specialist, Dr. Joseph Yo-Sup Lee, worked at NewLife for at least a decade, although his licence had been suspended indefinitely in New York State in 2010. That year, before a medical conduct board in New York, where he was then working, he pleaded guilty to abusing alcohol.

Article content

He started working at NewLife in Ontario in 2012, his LinkedIn biography shows. But neither Lee’s CPSO profile, nor the NewLife website, mention the licence suspension in New York.

Article content

Lee is no longer listed as a doctor at NewLife, and his Ontario medical licence expired in 2024. A year earlier, in May 2023, his Ontario licence was restricted, but there is no information on the CPSO website to explain why. CPSO’s Cirak offered no further details.

Article content

Lee’s lawyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment. NewLife did not respond directly to questions about Lee.

Article content

The histories of these doctors at NewLife and elsewhere have led some experts to call for a tightening of standards in this booming industry.

Article content

For example, organizations like the CPSO or the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS), a national nonprofit representing fertility specialists, could create something like a “stamp of approval” for clinics with medical staff who have no licence restrictions, Cattapan suggested. The (CPSO) “could be supporting patients more and making sure that the doctors that serve them … are the best.”

Article content

***

Article content

Dr. Janice Sze Wei Lam, a gynecologist at Lakeridge Fertility in Whitby, had her licence restricted from October 2019 to April 2020, after she was cautioned by a CPSO inquiries committee over two cases in which babies were delivered stillborn at Ontario hospitals.

Article content

In both cases, the inquiries committee raised concerns that Lam had waited too long to perform cesarean sections, and didn’t adequately communicate with the parents after the infants died.

Article content

Article content

“The Committee felt that the patient and her spouse were deserving of better care and support, and a greater level of compassion than Dr. Lam demonstrated here,” said a 2016 CPSO statement that cautioned Lam following the first death.

Article content

After the second death, which happened in May 2018, the CPSO inquiries committee concluded Lam had made a “critical error.” The matter did not proceed to a disciplinary hearing after Lam agreed to take courses on issues such as communication and fetal heart rate surveillance.

Article content

The College of Surgeons and Physicians of Ontario deals with standards and disciplinary matters in that province. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /Postmedia

Article content

In an email, Browning, the medical director at Lakeridge Fertility, said Lam has not been seeing new consultations at the clinic for approximately two years. During the COVID-19 backlog, he said, Lam assisted with routine consultations to help “improve access to fertility care in the region.”

Article content

He added Lam’s CPSO involvement was in reference to obstetrics and had “nothing to do with” gynecological practice.

Article content

“At the time Janice did some work for us she was well trained and had a very busy, successful gynaecology practice. I have/had no concerns about patient safety and was confident Dr. Lam could provide excellent care to her patients,” he wrote.

Article content

Article content

Lam, who remains listed on Lakeridge Fertility’s website as a physician, did not respond to questions.

Article content

The majority of licence restrictions the IJB found for fertility clinic doctors were in Ontario. But reporters also uncovered cases in Quebec, such as that of Dr. François Bissonnette, one of the founders of Clinique OVO.

Article content

He was sanctioned in 2019 for removing a patient’s right fallopian tube without her consent after operating on the left one. The patient said she would not have undergone the procedure had she known she could lose both fallopian tubes, a ruling by the Collège des médecins du Québec said.

Article content

The college noted that Bissonnette was concerned for his patient’s well-being, but he was found to have violated the college’s code of ethics. He received a four-month suspension. No restriction is currently attached to his licence. On the OVO clinic’s website, no mention is made of this past.

Article content

Neither OVO nor Bissonnette responded to multiple requests for comment.

Article content

The Quebec college of physicians did not directly respond to questions on  Bissonnette’s case, saying all disciplinary decisions are available on the college’s website.

Article content

The vacuum of regulations in many provinces can leave unhappy patients with little recourse if they encounter inappropriate physician behaviour, said Cattapan of the University of Waterloo.

Article content

In provinces like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, where there are very few clinics, she said patients may hesitate to lodge complaints, fearing they could lose access to the only place they can seek fertility services.

Article content

Even high-profile cases about wrongdoing at fertility clinics have not appreciably moved the dial on toughening regulations in the industry, Cattapan said.

Article content

“There’s no new regulation. There’s no governance of this in new ways,” Cattapan said.

Article content

— [email protected], [email protected]. With files from Vihaan Bhatnagar

Article content

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters. 

Article content

Next: How the egg-freezing industry can improve

Article content

Article content