October 13, 2018
To All Ontario Doctors
Dear Colleagues,
For several weeks, we had been waiting patiently with hope as the new PC government and OMA actually sat down to talk taking us out of the binding interest arbitration process. Well, the wait is over. You likely found out about rumours that the new set of talks had fallen apart and there was a call to pull “specialist” and “primary care” apart. Last week, the OMA announced that talks did break down and the OMA and Ontario government are returning to arbitration the week of October 22nd to 26th. The day after this, the OMA released a rebuttal to an apparent “senior government official” breach of protocol releasing details the negotiations. This included a comment regarding the issue of relativity that “…the parties had explicitly agreed that relativity issues would be resolved only after an agreement was reached on overall compensation adjustments.” Finally in last night’s OMA President’s Update from Dr. Nadia Alam, we have learned that the OMA Board, along with the same negotiating team of Mr. Goldblatt and Mr. Barrett, has us apparently heading into arbitration with relativity as a top issue, if not the key issue. Worse, they are proposing that each OMA Section, or Section individual, gets in line, with relativity submissions in hand, like a scene out of Oliver Twist.
We are very disappointed as you must be as well.
Rather than going on and on about our negotiations mess, isn’t it time to think about and spread the word about us, DoctorsOntario? To help you and your colleagues better understand what DoctorsOntario is all about, you’ll find several issues that we believe in below. After this, you’ll also find our recent Medical Post column called “Ontario fee talks have failed again, with a new government” that appears nationally on the Canadian Healthcare Network.
RESPECT OUR PROFESSION DESPERATELY NEEDS
Come April 1, 2019, we’ll likely enter into our 6th year without a contract while enduring 5 years of unilateral cuts and clawbacks amounting to $ billions. Worse, we provide the increasing costs of our offices from our own pockets in the face of a growing, aging population while we struggle with a shortage of doctors and hospital beds. This is a disgrace, a continuing slap in the face of our profession that must come to an end.
OUR NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE TO BE A FAILURE AND THIS IS WHY
The OMA puts little budgetary resources towards negotiations (we have heard ~6% or less ). It was appointed to be our negotiating representative by the very government that guarantees its funding by law and without our vote. The OMA is in a conflict of interest, which lends itself to corruption by definition. Our binding interest arbitration process is being tested for the first time. We already know that it has significant flaws including a ban on organized job actions, permitting the government to pass legislation to repeal it, and having no provision of a framework to recover the $ billions taken through cuts and clawbacks. Although the OMA Charter Challenge could contest this, we fail to see a commitment.
ONE PROFESSION
DoctorsOntario strongly believes in a unified physician profession. We have strength in numbers. Any talk of splitting up into different groups plays right into the hands of the government that wants to “divide and conquer” us. Why do this? We must harmonize our differences, remain as one profession, and become stronger than ever.
WE NEED A TOUGH NEGOTIATOR
It is clear that our profession as never faced such a crisis as we do now. As a direct result, doctors are retiring by the droves, suffering low moral and apathy plus financial strain, and seem hopeless more than we have ever seen. We feel this is particularly serious for our young doctors, the residents and students, some who cannot even be matched in a residency position, struggle with high tuition debt, and face financial uncertainty without the protection of their union, PARO. To fight back, we need a tough negotiator. We have a tough negotiator waiting in the wings, Craig Bromell who isn’t afraid to stand up to anything. When enough doctors prove they are committed by joining DoctorsOntario, Craig will call a meeting all of us to start exploring our options.
HEALTHCARE THAT ALL CANADIANS DESERVE
We continue the fight for our patients to have efficient and timely access to healthcare. Our healthcare system is monopolized governments, heavy with bureaucracy, and ranks near the bottom of developed countries for technologies, doctors, and hospital beds. Patients are suffering on long wait lists and have no where to turn. We have to remain compassionate and have the courage to revitalize Canada’s floundering universal health system.
There are more core values of what DoctorsOntario is all about. The best way to summarize it is with our Mission, Vision, Goals and Objectives that took shape when we evolved from The Coalition of Family Physicians of Ontario to DoctorsOntario starting in 2010:
Our Vision
An open healthcare environment and system that allows physicians and their patients the freedom and independence to explore and participate in a broad range of medical care accessibility options that foster an uncompromising high standard of sustainable healthcare care in Ontario.
Our Mission
DoctorsOntario protects the rights, freedoms and independence of medical doctors and their patients by promoting sustainable healthcare policies and practices that safeguard accessibility and the highest standards of medical care.
Goals and Objectives
- To advocate for the rights of physicians in Ontario to practice medicine in a manner that
- Promotes comprehensive accessibility to medical services;
- Advances a high standard of sustainable care and treatment;
- Safeguards the doctor-patient relationship.
- To ensure that all physicians in Ontario are fairly compensated for their services.
- To provide the public with information and the means to influence change related to the standard of healthcare services in Ontario, healthcare accessibility for patients, and the accountability of government and agencies responsible for healthcare.
This is what DoctorsOntario stands for.
To continue our work and to expand our efforts, we need many more of you to show your commitment to becoming members if you haven’t yet done so. We also ask that you share this with as many of your colleagues as possible and ask them to also DoctorsOntario. Government privacy laws prohibits us from getting doctors’ email addresses. The OMA does not allow us to access its email database. We can only count on you to grow.
For the over 22 years from our humble beginnings, there hasn’t been a greater need than right now. So please help us help you, our profession, and the patients we serve. Please, pull out your chequebook or credit card and download a membership form to send in, click here to join or renew online, or simply contact our chief strategist Stephen Skyvington at (416) 859-2239 or at politrain@sympatico.ca and take advantage of our express renewal service. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Stephen as well. We want to hear from you.
Thank-you!
Without you, we couldn’t do what we do.
Douglas Mark, MD, Interim President
and the Board of DoctorsOntario
Doctors Ontario 