A Montreal-area physician says she has had her pay slashed for taking maternity leave. It’s because of a new agreement with the government to get family doctors to take on more patients.
Dr. Evelyne Bourdua-Roy started her career as a general practitioner (GP) last October.
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She has recently come back from maternity leave and she’s been told she’ll have to pay back 15 per cent of her salary because she didn’t meet her quota. In a new agreement between her union and the government, new doctors receive a salary top up to take on 500 new patients in the year to come.
“This is not a question of money. I’m not complaining that I don’t get paid enough as a doctor,” Bourdua-Roy said.
“This is about discrimination against women who take maternity leave …. The timer should stop when I’m on maternity leave and just get started when I come back. That’s just logical to me. I just can’t believe this is happening in Quebec in 2016.”
She made a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. She also brought her concern to the health minister Gaétan Barrette, who said it was a mistake on the part of the doctors’ federation, the FMOQ.
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“Obviously, they forgot an aspect of their regulation, but it’s their thing, it’s not mine,” he said.
A spokesperson with the FMOQ told Global News that wasn’t true.
In a written statement, Jean-Pierre Dion said the federation asked Barrette for exceptions for maternity leaves but the minister refused. They are now taking measures to fix the system and allow new doctors who take maternity leave an extension to sign up their new patients.
The official opposition, Parti Quebecois (PQ), agreed the minister needs to take some blame himself for penalizing doctors in the first place.
“He focussed on statistics and on coercion against physicians, which is not the right way to give better access to primary care,” Diane Lamarre, PQ health critic, said.
Bourdua-Roy said she’s heard that other women doctors have been unfairly treated under the new rules.
“It’s not the first time my federation, or the government has heard of cases like mine. It’s not new and it’s time to fix it,” she said.
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