A celebration of greed

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We’ve been talking about that over on Peter Whittle’s blog Polemic & Paradox. When I heard the announcement yesterday that the government had reached an agreement with the doctors, I thought that what we’re celebrating here is greed. Doctors who now earn multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars each year are now going to earn more and the $100million settlement is only the tip of the iceberg. You can be sure there’s more we don’t know about.

And, of course, as anyone with a brain predicted, the resignations have been withdrawn. It was a bluff and hospital staff knew it, doctors knew it, the politicians knew it … but who didn’t know it were the parents of sick children who were fearing for their children’s lives while the doctors played their high-stakes games. The next time someone talks to me about “caring” doctors who always put their patients first, it will be hard for me to get it out of my mind that those pediatricians used the children as bargaining chips.

The other game of course is that the doctors complained about too much work. So Eastern Health took away administrative work from at least one doctor and maybe more. Today the Eastern Health CEO Vicki Kaminski said those responsibilities have been restored. I guess the doctor who complained about being tired and not able to get all of her work done has been drinking large quantifies of Boost or something because now that $95thousand dollars will be flowing back into her bank account. Amazing the difference that more money can make to your energy levels.

And, don’t forget, as Kaminski pointed out this morning, that many of these doctors have teaching appointments to the medical school which mean additional tens of thousands of dollars into those bank accounts. 

Oh, it’s a tough life and it’s hard to make a buck but I’m sure those vacations in Paris, Rome, and other exotic places will help to heal the wounds of having had to negotiate with that nasty government.

As for the seniors in the Corner Brook nursing home who have to wait three hours to get their diapers changed … well, it soon may be four hours because the government won’t be able to afford to hire additional attendants due to the cost of the settlement with the doctors. I’m sure most of the doctors will be crying about that ... all the way to the bank.

Today, we celebrate greed.