TORONTO – A respected Ottawa fertility doctor had his licence suspended Thursday for two months because he artificially inseminated three patients with the wrong sperm.
Dr. Norman Barwin clasped his hands and listened intently as he stood before a disciplinary panel of five from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario while they read aloud his reprimand.
"It is hard to imagine a more fundamental error in the practice of your former specialty, than the failure to impregnate the right woman with the right sperm," said chairman Dr. William King. "Your errors have condemned them to social and psychological pain and their offspring to ignorance of their genetic carriage."
In addition to the suspension, Barwin must pay the college $3,650 - the cost of the hearing - within 30 days.
