ABSTRACT
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been trying for a long time to identify and locate the mastermind behind a criminal ring that recruits teenagers into drug peddling and prostitution. The criminal has adopted an assumed identity and as a result is extremely difficult to locate and so more dangerous. The RCMP finally have one lead. They learn from an undercover police agent that the drug king-pin sprained his ankle sometime in August 1977 and had it attended to in a small town Ontario hospital. They go to the appropriate Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) official and ask to see the patient treatment records for the month of August. The OHIP official faces a classic moral dilemma, a problem which puts us into a no-win situation. The OHIP case could be seen as a problem of police ethics as well as a problem in medical ethics.
