Quebec reaches out to doctors to restart talks, suspends parts of special law
The Quebec government will suspend two measures of Bill 2, hoping to persuade doctors’ unions angry over the special law to return to the bargaining table.
Although the change to doctors’ remuneration methodology is a done deal, Premier François Legault told reporters on Tuesday afternoon he wanted to “extend a hand” to both federations to discuss the details.
The move to block parts of the legislation, announced by Health Minister Christian Duby and Treasury Board President Frans-Alain Duranceau, comes as federations representing Quebec’s general practitioners, medical specialists and medical students have filed legal challenges to Bill 2 and stayed the execution.
Fédération médicale étudiante du Québec (FMEQ) appeared in court for the first time on Tuesday.
“We are very concerned by the response of doctors over the past few days,” Duranceau said. “I think we all agree on the objective. We need to change the way doctors are remunerated.”
Dubé said that until further notice, Quebec will maintain the premium specialist doctors receive when a family doctor refers a patient to them. The new law would have eliminated the premium and repurposed the funds associated with it.
The second measure relates to allowing 30 percent of the doctors who form a family medicine group (FMG) to meet office expenses. The funds will be directly transferred to FMG as per law. However, for the time being their payments to doctors will continue.
The CAQ implemented the closure to pass Bill 2, which imposes fines of up to $500,000 per day on physician groups that take “consolidated action” to challenge government policies.
During the fall, unions representing family doctors and medical specialists used pressure tactics to protest the proposed remuneration system, such as refusing to teach medical students.
Under the new law, a portion of doctors’ compensation will be tied to performance targets, for example, the number of patients, especially vulnerable ones, they care for.
FMOQ says no talks until entire law is stopped
Federation des médecins omnipracticiens du Québec (FMOQ) published a statement on social media on Tuesday, saying it is not willing to resume negotiations with the Coalition Avenir Quebec government unless Bill 2 is suspended in its entirety.
“The government does not understand the true depth of anger felt by family doctors on the eve of its ‘explanatory’ webinar and from which the FMOQ was excluded,” the federation wrote, referring to some information-sessions held to address doctors’ questions.
Among other things, the FMOQ raises the issue of Bill 2’s creation of quantitative performance indicators that would motivate doctors to practice what the FMOQ describes as “fast-food” medicine.
The federation also says the government’s color-coded system for assessing the vulnerability of patients and its inability to guarantee access to human resources are also preventing FMOQ from returning to the bargaining table.
