Alberta’s surgeons are calling on the health minister to reconsider the province’s imposed doctor pay raise, saying the settlement “is of great concern.”
Paul Hardy, president of the Alberta Association of General Surgeons, tells CTV News on the surface, the imposed settlement that would see doctors getting a one-time lump sum payment of two-and-a half per cent plus cost-of-living increases through 2016, looks good, but upon closer inspection, reveals rollbacks that are no favourable to surgeons.
In particular, Hardy says he’s worried the payment for after-hours work is being scaled back by 10 per cent.
"It sends a message that night work isn't important,” Hardy said on Sunday.
“Through negotiation over years we actually became recognized for some of the work that general surgeons do by the night fee and now it's being rolled back."
The association issued an open letter to Health Minister Fred Horne, saying the rollback is “sending a negative signal to those doctors who work in the middle of the night on the sickest patients, often with life-threatening conditions.”
“We do a lot of night work, a lot of emergency work, and some of the fees are being lowered for that very difficult work,” Hardy said.
Hardy also says the settlement to surgeons doesn’t provide extras for physicians or to health care in general.
“We are not as well-paid as they would like the public to believe and also they are rolling back in many areas so this is not really something that is providing extras to physicians or to healthcare,” he said.
A spokesperson for Horne said he was unavailable for comment Sunday, but would be officially replying to the open letter on Monday.
The spokesperson says change to the after-hours feed code will not be made without input from the Alberta Medical Association.
Alberta surgeons want to go back to the bargaining table, however Horne’s spokesperson tells CTV that’s not going to happen.
A meeting between the Alberta Medical Association and Horne is expected later this week to discuss next steps.
The announcement of the pay increase was made more than a week ago, and was done so without agreement by the Alberta Medical Association.
