Emergency-room doctors are filing a complaint against Montreal’s Sacré Coeur Hospital. Their association is angry because the hospital is continuing to offer bonuses to doctors who work extra shifts in the emergency rooms.

The head of emergency medicine for the French-language teaching hospitals says Sacré Coeur is paying from $250 to $1,000 extra per shift.

Dr. Jean Rodrigue, spokesman for the Federation of General Practitioners, says doctors have told the Health Ministry three times about the problem. He says the federation can’t do much more.

“We have no power because it’s a decision made by an administrator in a hospital and we don’t have any power on that,” Rodrigue says.

Rodrigue worries the bonuses offered by Sacré Coeur could lead to staff shortages in other emergency rooms.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/08/08/emergcomplaint010808.html

gurv on 9/5/2008