Quebec family doctors claim that the data on which the government is basing its request to them to be more efficient is erroneous and that it is false to say that they work less than their colleagues in the rest of Canada.
With statistics to support this, the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ) claims that the number of family doctors is “overestimated by 1,382 people”.
She argues that comparisons with the rest of Canada are based on 7 or 8 hour days, while her members often have 10 to 12 hour work days.
She also argues that the statistics do not take into account atypical schedules and the volume of on-call hours at the hospital. Because unlike their colleagues outside Quebec, many general practitioners here practice in a hospital setting.
Statistical debate
The data in question comes from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). At a press conference held Tuesday in Quebec City, the FMOQ brandished a letter proving that the CIHI had recognized the limitations of its own statistics.
“Doctors do not work less than doctors in the rest of Canada, quite the contrary,” said the president of the Federation, Marc-André Amyot, at a press conference. “At some point, family doctors have broad shoulders,” he also mentioned.
The “fundamental problem” in the network is not the inefficiency of doctors but the lack of organization, its vice-president Pierre Martin later added.
Not so easy hours
This statement comes as negotiations with the government enter a crucial phase. The government, for its part, believes that family doctors earn too much in relation to the services they provide. It also accuses them of not working enough days per year.
For example, more than 3,000 family doctors (one third) bill less than 175 days per year, which is significantly lower than the average for government employees. However, the FMOQ maintains that this does not take into account a series of scenarios such as maternity leave, sick leave or doctors who leave the network during the period. In the end, they claim, only 5.6% of the 9,887 general practitioners work less than 175 days for no known reason., or 553 of them.
An average salary of $330,313 per year
However, the FMOQ has been arguing for years that there is a shortage of 1,000 family doctors in Quebec. Could the gap be reduced by asking these 553 doctors to do more? Absolutely not, replies Marc-André Amyot, who states that they may have other motives.
The FMOQ said it did not want to focus its presentation on Tuesday on salaries. The data it presented suggests that the average gross income of its members is $330,313, which, it says, is below the average for Ontario and Canada. However, it was not able to provide an estimate of this gap on Tuesday.
However, the “full-time equivalent” (FTE) calculation method used by the government shows that, on the contrary, they are better paid than their colleagues in Ontario and other Canadian provinces.
In Ontario, an arbitrator has just granted a 10% increase in doctors’ salaries over one year. Mr. Amyot suggested that this increase should be taken into account in the negotiations on the Quebec side.