A London chiropractor has been suspended a month after a medical doctor accused him of bending the rules.

B. J. (Benjamin) Hardick, a chiropractor since 2001, was disciplined by the College of Chiropractors of Ontario after a probe that began when physician Terry Polevoy complained twice, each time alleging Hardick had arranged for blood tests no qualified doctor had ordered.

Ontario does not allow chiropractors to order lab tests. Instead, they must ask other medical professionals, such as medical doctors, to order such tests.

The first complaint by Polevoy, in 2009, led to no discipline after the regulatory college concluded Hardick had not known the lab he used, Gamma-Dynacare Medical Laboratories, had arranged for tests to be ordered by a doctor whose authority to do so was removed in 2011 by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.



Dr. B.J. Hardick (Free Press file photo)

But even after the chiropractic college told Hardick in 2012 that doctor lacked the authority to order blood tests, he continued for two years to rely on Gamma-Dynacare and the same doctor for some of the patients who attended nutrition seminars Hardick hosted.

“(Hardick) admits that he failed to take sufficient steps to ensure that blood sample test ordering, analysis and communications of test results for his nutrition seminar clients was being done in accordance with Ontario Law,” the chiropractor college wrote in a decision Dec. 22. “(He) further admits this failure constitutes professional misconduct.”

In an interview this week, Hardick said he accepts responsibility for his conduct and the discipline of the regulatory college.

“I have the highest respect for the college,” he said. “I had not done adequate due diligence.”

The college reprimanded Hardick and suspended him for three months but set aside two of those months if he:

• Completes a legislation and ethics examination and a workshop on record keeping.

• Limits his practice to that prescribed for chiropractors.

• Pays to have his practice reviewed by a peer within six months.

The regulatory college also ordered Hardick to pay part of its legal costs ­totalling $12,500.

The blood tests were not part of Hardick’s chiropractor practice, but were one of the offerings in seminars he hosts on nutrition and exercise that have drawn between 5,000 and 10,000 people during the course of a decade, he toldThe Free Press. Those seminars are still available but not the blood tests, he said.

Ontario’s Health Ministry is considering whether to expand the scope of practice of chiropractors in a way that would let them order blood tests in some circumstances, he said.

jsher@postmedia.com