Doctor charged with sexually assaulting patients last year now faces 16 more charges, police say

A Manitoba doctor has been charged with 16 more counts of sexual assault after initially being charged last year with assaulting six of his patients, police say.

The additional complainants came forward after the first charges against Dr. Arcel Bissonnette were announced in November 2020, Ste. Anne Police Department Chief Marc Robichaud said in a short news release on Thursday afternoon.

Bissonnette now faces 22 charges of sexual assault.

The firstcharges against him were madefollowing an investigation into allegations he assaulted six patients over the course of 13 years, police said at the time.

The doctor worked at the Ste. Anne Hospital and the Sainte-Anne Medical Centre in Ste. Anne, a town about 40 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg.

Once the criminal charges against Bissonnette came to light, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba said he was barred from practising medicine.

Before that, the regulatory body was already aware of at least one complaint that prompted it to put the doctor under restrictions that meant he had to have a female chaperone in the room for some exams beginning in 2019.

Robichaud did not provide any further details about the latest charges against the doctor and said the police department will not be responding to media requests about Bissonnette at this time.