Health Minister Eric Hoskins says the union representing 25,000 Ontario doctors missed its chance to come back to the negotiating table with the province.

Responding to a letter Ontario Medical Association president Ved Tandan penned to the premier on Wednesday asking for a meeting to re-discuss its offer of a two-year fee freeze for doctors, Hoskins said the Liberals have already acted to impose terms on the province’s physicians, including fee cuts, after contract talks between the two parties broke down almost two weeks ago.

“It’s important to go back to the fact that, over a year of negotiations, it was only after those negotiations had concluded that the OMA … mentioned or suggested an idea of counterproposal,” Hoskins told reporters before heading into a caucus meeting on Wednesday. “There was no counterproposal over the past year when they had the opportunity.”

The OMA’s rejection of the provincial government’s contract offer to replace a previous two-year deal that expired at the end of March sparked a unilateral move by Hoskins to crack down on physicians' salaries for the next three years.

Compensation is the issue Premier Kathleen Wynne said became the focus during contract talks with the province’s doctors instead of making sure the government had enough money to invest in more positions and services, according to a story in The Sudbury Star this weekend.

Tandan said Ontario doctors were “extremely disappointed” to read this, and that’s why he decided to reach out with a letter to “correct the record.”

“Premier, I had the privilege of being at the negotiations table for a couple of days. I went with the understanding that negotiations should be about a partnership of big ideas, sharing common ground in health care and finding solutions for patients,” Tandan wrote. “Unfortunately, this time, it seemed to be all about the government’s budget.”

While the government maintains its targeted savings of $650 million will not impact patient care, the OMA says the government’s agreement to fund less than half of the health care system’s growth — 1.25 per cent — over the next three years is “not enough for Ontarians.”

Tandan reiterated in his letter the doctors’ offer to freeze their fees over two years if the government agrees to fund the growth of medical care, which the OMA projects to be 2.7 per cent annually.

After accepting a 5 per cent funding cut in 2012, which helped to save $850 million in the system, the OMA said the provincial offer aiming to cut another 4 per cent is inadequate for the needs of the health-care system.

In response, Hoskins said he wishes the OMA would've accepted the province’s offer, which contained terms that should not have come as a surprise to them.

“It’s also important for doctors and the public to know that every single measure we put in that final offer and every measure we’re going to be implementing has been known by the OMA for many, many months,” he said.

Moving forward, Hoskins said he’s asked his ministry to consider establishing a roundtable or task force to focus on how healthcare workers work together with the government and how the province’s healthcare system can be made more sustainable – a commitment also laid out in the contract offer the OMA rejected.

“Certainly it would be important for the OMA to be part of that,” he said.

Previous negotiations between Queen’s Park and the OMA have been very contentious. The most recent agreement saw doctors’ pay essentially frozen at $11 billion, out of a total health-care budget of about $50 billion.

The government, which is planning to control costs and balance the provincial budget by 2017-18, has said any new spending will focus on home care, community care and mental health services.

Hoskins: OMA’s letter comes too little, too late

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