Close to a thousand doctors in Canada who are protesting against their own pay raises, have signed a petition asking the government to revoke the hike in their remuneration.
“We, Quebec doctors who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations,” said the group at Médecins Québécois pour le Régime Public (MQRP).
The group has earlier opposed a $500 million pay hike for specialists in February this year.
The doctors have opposed their pay hike in the wake of budget cuts during the recent years and “heavy workload” on nurses due to a “chronic lack of staff”.
“These increases are all the more shocking because our nurses, clerks, clerks and other professionals face very difficult working conditions, while our patients live with the lack of access to required services because of the drastic cuts in recent years,” reads the petition.
“The only thing that seems to be immune to the cuts is our remuneration.”
MQRP president Dr Isabelle Lablanc says more money for doctors hasn’t helped the patients.
“It’s clear for a lot of us that the increase in physicians’ fees in the past decade has helped physicians — because they’re making more money — but it hasn’t helped the patients,” Dr Leblanc told the Montreal Gazette.
The newspaper quoted reports that showed while the number of doctors and their salaries have gone up, they were working fewer hours and seeing fewer patients.
Dr Leblanc said non-physician work was eating up the doctors’ time that could be devoted to patients.
“Paying us more for the work doesn’t really compensate for that. Offer doctors more support and they’ll be able to see a lot more patients,” she said.
The petition dated February 25 has been signed by 433 physicians, 232 general practitioners and 201 specialists, 161 resident medical doctors and 169 medical students.
The protesting doctors want the money allocated for their pay raise to be redistributed to the Quebec health system so that health needs of the patients could be served “without pushing workers to the end”.
"We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the health care workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec."
According to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a surgical specialist in Canada is paid $460,000 and a GP is paid on an average $275,000 per annum. However, the GPs have to pay the overhead costs of operating, the CNBC reports.
