Doctors reject offer from province
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The Ontario Medical Association has rejected a contract offer from the province and the health minister says he’s disappointed.
The offer would have increased doctors’ pay by 1.25 per cent a year for the next three years.
But Minister of Health Dr. Eric Hoskins says doctors are asking for increases of 2.7% a year, which the government will not approve: “I can’t even begin to express to you how disappointed I am that the Ontario Medical Association has rejected our proposal after one year of hard work and good faith negotiations. The OMA argument says that pay raises should come before patients. And we can’t agree.”
Hoskins says Ontario doctors are among the highest paid in Canada with an average salary of $360-thousand. He says the OMA never provided a counter-proposal. The Ontario Medical Association says it put patient care first by saying no to the offer. It says the offer will cover less than half of the funding required for new doctors who are needed to treat current patients already struggling to access the care they need.
