TORONTO — The Ontario Medical Association says the outcome of the vote by the province’s doctors on a new fee agreement may not be known until Tuesday.
The association says the process to tabulate and certify the results is still underway.
Ballots were cast Sunday during a town hall-style meeting in which doctors argued over the four-year deal, which would increase Ontario’s $11.5-billion physician services budget by 2.5 per cent a year.
READ MORE: Ontario doctors vote on new fee agreement, 2.5 per cent fee hike each year
It would also allow doctors to co-manage the system with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and prohibits any more unilateral fee cuts by the government.
Some of the 29,000 physicians represented by the OMA urged their colleagues to reject the deal, in large part because it doesn’t include binding arbitration to settle future fee disputes.
The OMA says it will continue to fight for binding arbitration in court, but recommends doctors accept the new deal because it’ll bring financial stability after two years without a contract.
OMA president Virginia Walley says she knows the fee agreement “isn’t perfect,” and that some doctors are angry at what she calls the “disrespect” Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government has shown them by its unilateral fee cuts.
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