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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Canadian Doctors Protest Because They’re Paid Too Much

    Canadian+Doctors+Protest+Because+Theyre+Paid+Too+Much

    According to CNN, hundreds of doctors from Quebec are signing a petition in response to their pay raises, which add up to $700 million.

    These doctors- over 500 professionals and 150 medical students, reports CNBC- believe that the money should be given to others in the field and towards making great healthcare a healthcare for all of those in the province.

    “These increases are all the more shocking because our nurses, clerks and other professionals face very difficult working conditions, while our patients live with the lack of access to required services because of the drastic cuts in recent years,” states the petition, making it clear that these individuals are hoping that their raises can be redistributed to improve the lives of their patients and fellow workers.

    The average Canadian physician makes about $260,000 every year.  If the doctors do not want all of this money, however, they would need to “accept [that] among themselves,” says Quebec’s health minister, Gaetan Barrette.

    “The doctors who are in that position [of being against their raises] are still the small minority,” he has said, adding that he will consider their request if the majority of doctors vote and agree.

    A majority of the worker’s dissent is rooted in the working conditions and wages of Canada’s nurses.

    “The nurses are exhausted by a heavy workload. They argue that the chronic lack of staff and the fatigue caused by repeated overtime, sometimes mandatory, for lack of replacement of the team, have an impact on the safety of patient care,” read a letter written by the same group who put out the recent petition.

    Emilie Ricard, a nurse from Quebec, can attest to this.

    “I am broken by my profession. I am ashamed of the poverty of the care that I provide as far as possible,” she wrote in a Facebook post in January. “My health system is sick and dying.”

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