Possibility of legislated wage freeze looms over N.B. doctors' meeting
The New Brunswick Medical Society was to discuss the provincial health minister's proposed wage freeze for fee-for-service doctors Friday, understanding that if the freeze is rejected, the provincial government could resort to legislation.
Dr. David Iles, the president of the Saint John Medical Society, said he didn't think the organization would come to any final decisions Friday on whether to accept the proposed wage freeze.
He said the board has only been mandated by its members to accept the tentative agreement reached last December.
Iles said it could take two weeks to get an answer from members on the provincial government's wage restraint request.
Health Minister Michael Murphy said this week that the wage freeze would be similar to the policy being instituted on other public servants as a result of the province's $740-million deficit.
Murphy said if the doctors agree to a two-year pay freeze, the province would save about $36 million, including $25 million from the fee-for-service doctors, who bill the province by procedure or patient, and $9-million from the salaried physicians.
If the doctors don't agree, Murphy said he'll have to make cuts somewhere else
"If we were to turn the tentative agreement into a full agreement, it's undoubtable that we'd have to close down hospitals and shut down programs. And then the question is, where are we going to do that?" Murphy said.
Freeze could hurt doctor recruitment
However, Iles said he doesn't believe the health minister's threats.
"Why physicians' wages should have to do anything with hospital closures, I really don't see the connection between those two things," he said.
"I think that's using the public and using weapons that really have nothing to do with our negotiated settlement."
If the freeze goes ahead, it will be even harder to recruit new doctors and retain existing ones, said Dr. Don Craig, president of the medical staff organization in southwestern New Brunswick, which represents about 400 doctors.
"What this does is it makes the province physician-unfriendly. I mean, it makes it very difficult to compete with the fellow provinces in trying to attract new doctors here. We should at least be competitive locally.
"We don't expect to compete with Alberta or B.C. or even Ontario, but we do expect to be competitive in our Atlantic region, and freezing the wages, the salaries for these new doctors, is not going to make us that way."
Murphy looks for co-operation
Murphy told the legislature Tuesday that the department was entering into discussions over a wage freeze with physicians. He said the policy could be retroactive to April 2008, when the last agreement expired.
The last agreement between the province and its fee-for-service physicians ended on March 31, 2008, so, Murphy said, doctors have been without a pay increase for 14 months.
"There are patients of physicians in this province who are undoubtedly suffering some angst over the economy and the inability, sometimes, to pay the mortgage or pay for their children," Murphy told the legislature on Thursday.
"We are looking for the co-operation of the medical society's members for merely 10 more months so that we can meet a common goal of restraint."
This wouldn't be the first fight between the provincial government and the medical society. Doctors went on strike for three days in 2001 after contract talks with the Conservative government fell apart.