Some medical professionals took issue.
“Philip Preville’s article is wellwritten, relatively non-histrionic and fair, but it doesn’t go deep enough. No, doctors aren’t completely altruistic, and, yes, most doctors would like more money. Wouldn’t you? Some lawyers bill $650 an hour. As a family doctor, I am blessed with an above-average income, but I bill about a fifth of that and I gross far less than the provincial average for doctors.
“Our health care system is, indeed, broken, but Preville’s article focuses almost entirely on the doctors. Why doesn’t he put equal emphasis on the other instigators? OHIP is a gigantic, expensive, hopelessly bureaucratic mess. Patients are not blameless either. Too many have an outsized sense of entitlement and abuse their ‘free’ system. After 45 years as a physician, I would be willing to accept an income freeze if it meant fairer negotiations, better services for my patients and, most importantly, a promise from the Ontario government that it would stay out of my examining room.”
—Steven D. Levinson, Port Hope
“Ontario doctors believe binding arbitration is necessary because there continues to be a serious power imbalance between Ontario’s doctors and the provincial government, which sees fit to settle disputes by unilaterally imposing cuts. While Ontario Medical Association members sympathize with the government’s fiscal challenges, we also know that, with an aging and growing population, investments are needed to continue to provide the level of care our patients require.
“I would also like to clarify a point made in Mr. Preville’s article. The OMA did not sit down with the ministry in May to ‘hammer out the tentative Physician Services
Agreement’ (which was rejected by 63 per cent of the 55 per cent of members who voted, not ‘63 per cent of the province’s physicians’). The negotiation began at the end of June; this is an important distinction, because first we attempted to develop a binding arbitration framework that would right the power imbalance that currently exists between doctors and government.
“Mr. Preville is correct that there is work for the OMA to do, and we have begun that by engaging with our members to decide on a way forward. At the same time, we hope the minister of health chooses to proceed in a more respectable fashion, without vilifying physicians and making indiscriminate cuts to the budget.” —Virginia Walley, OMA president
“As a physician and radiologist, I wish to address Philip Preville’s comments that our work is ‘much faster than it used to be and has become disproportionately lucrative.’ Unfortunately, this is a perception that many people (doctors and patients alike) share.
“Let me start with his comments about advances in medical imaging software. Computeraided diagnosis is a potentially useful technology, but it is not in general use in Canadian hospitals nor independent imaging clinics, and it doesn’t supplant a radiologist’s interpretation.
“Radiologists are all, by and large, compensated fee-forservice. If 10 chest X-rays come through my door and I get paid $10 each, I make $100. My colleague who makes $200 is working exactly twice as hard and for twice as long as I am. We don’t order our own studies. Our volumes are driven by our referring physicians. In my experience, radiologists often try to give clinicians reasons not to image ‘inappropriately.’
“I love my work and am fortunate to make a great living doing
something I love. But I also carry great responsibility in a profession that pretty much demands 100 per cent accuracy with potentially dire patient consequences otherwise. In our current political climate, to be portrayed as income-driven while practising an increasingly automated and simplified profession is inaccurate and demoralizing.”
—Richard Lee, Oakville