N.B. doctors order meeting over wage freeze dispute with province

The New Brunswick Medical Society is calling an emergency meeting for June 12 to hammer out a strategy to deal with the provincial government's proposed wage freeze.

After refusing to comment on Health Minister Michael Murphy's demand for a wage freeze for several days, Dr. Ludger Blier, the president of the medical society, issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon outlining the doctors' strategy.

"Unfortunately, it has become clear that we have been labouring under the false assumption that the province of New Brunswick would honour the terms of tentative agreements that were concluded as a result of many months of patient, good-faith negotiations," Blier's statement said.

The last agreement between the province and its fee-for-service physicians ended on March 31, 2008. The two sides struck a tentative agreement in December but it was never implemented.

Murphy has proposed that doctors freeze their wages until April 2010. The provincial government has frozen the wages of public servants for two years in response to the $740-million budget deficit.

The legislature is expected to close by June 12, the day the doctors are planning their meeting.

"The events of the last several weeks are, to say the least, deeply troubling to New Brunswick physicians and I suspect to physicians across the country. What message is being sent to physicians about the government’s integrity?" Blier's statement said.

Doctors discuss job action

Some New Brunswick doctors are considering job action if the provincial government imposes a two-year wage freeze, according to a Saint John family physician.

Dr. Mike Simon said doctors are angry that the provincial government is trying to renege on a four-year tentative contract that would give physicians a pay raise of 18 per cent.

Simon said doctors are not impressed with the idea of having their fees frozen.

"The ones I'm talking to are adamant they don't want to accept the zero-zero."

Simon said the job action being discussed by his colleagues could include reducing the number of hours that doctors volunteer in hospitals, work on committees or do paperwork.

He acknowledged those measures would affect patients.

In January 2001, the province's 1,300 doctors went on strike for three days after contract talks were stalled with the government.

Relationship with doctors at risk

Simon said the New Brunswick government has been cultivating an unfriendly relationship with its doctors.

The family doctor said the provincial government's policies are hurting New Brunswick's ability to attract and retain physicians.

Simon said the province cannot compare the wage freeze already imposed on the province's civil service to what is being asked of the doctors.

"We're not [the same]. We don't have Blue Cross [health coverage]. We don't have pension plans. We don't have vacation days," Simon said.

"We are entrepreneurs, you know, who have our own businesses. So we don't have those benefits. You can't compare us that way."

Murphy said last week that if the doctors agree to a two-year pay freeze, the province would save about $36 million, including $25 million from fee-for-service doctors, who bill the province by procedure or patient, and $9 million from salaried physicians.