Doctors ends strike, N.B. exodus feared

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick – The strike by New Brunswick doctors is over, but there are fears the problems that started it will only get worse.

The New Brunswick Medical Society threw in the towel Wednesday in its dispute with the provincial government over wages and working conditions, and urged the province’s 1,300 physicians to end their three-day walkout and return to their offices Thursday.

Physicians who attended the announcement in Fredericton looked beaten and defeated as they said they were unable to make any headway with Premier Bernard Lord’s Conservative government and there was no chance of a negotiated settlement.

The dispute will be sent to binding arbitration.

“This situation has aroused a lot of emotions and passions amongst physicians,” said David Flower, a family doctor in Fredericton.

“I predict this will quickly dwindle into a sense of despair and people may just finally give up and leave. I’m not trying to fear-monger, but that would be very dangerous for the people of this province.”

Dr. John McCann, president of the medical society, said mediation efforts failed because the Lord government was insincere and “attempted to manipulate the process.”

He had a grim warning for the Tory government, which was elected in 1999 with a promise to make New Brunswick a “physician-friendly” province.

“The mass exodus of physicians that can be expected because of their unwillingness to deal openly with these problems will be a responsibility that they must bear,” McCann said.

“I have grave concerns for the future care that will be available for the people of this province.”

The doctors are demanding a large fee increase to make the province more competitive in the increasingly cutthroat international marketplace for physicians.

Lord said he was disappointed the doctors had decided to give up on mediation and go instead to third-party arbitration.

He said the government sweetened its offer as recently as Wednesday morning, offering a wage increase of $26,000 per doctor in a new four-year fee contract.

“It is by far the best offer doctors have ever seen in this province in the past 10, 15 or 20 years,” Lord said. “This was substantial and fair.”

The government had previously offered the doctors a $23,000 increase, with $17,000 up front in the first year. Lord said the proposed wage and benefit package represented $40 million more in health care investments “directly and strictly” for doctors.

But these amounts never came close to satisfying doctors’ demands. Although the medical society won’t give details on its latest position, the doctors had asked for a $50,000 wage increase.

Both sides have presented different numbers for doctors’ average incomes. The medical society says the average in New Brunswick is about $150,000. The province uses the figure of $180,000.

“We’re not going to discuss the plethora of figures from all sorts of sources,” said David Balmain, executive director of the medical

society.

“If there’s any indication that physicians in this province might generate income higher than other provinces, given our physician-supply situation, it is only a function of the fact that they’re working harder.”

McCann said the strike was about improving physician retention and recruitment in the Maritime province, which has been losing physicians to other jurisdictions with higher fee scales and more doctors to share

workloads.