Bill would allow doctors' salaries, names to be made public

P.E.I.'s Health and Wellness Minister Robert Henderson has tabled a bill that would give him the power to publish salaries and the names of Island doctors and other health care professionals.

Doctors' salaries are routinely tabled in the legislature during budget estimates every spring but never with names attached to the dollar amounts.

"I guess it's all about trying to be more open and transparent," said Henderson. "You know the public seems to have an increasing desire for more information. And you know it is a significant portion of money that we contribute to physician salaries."

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The amendment to the province's Health Services Payment Act would also give the health minister the authority to order audits into public health spending to ensure "the most economical expenditure of those public moneys."

Henderson suggested that if the bill passes, it would not necessarily lead to routine disclosure of salaries, but rather disclosure in exceptional cases.

"If we decided that there was a lot of questions surrounding particularly fee-for-service charges or particular salaries of a particular health professional, it would just give us that ability to be more open and transparent, to determine who and how and why that money was given to that particularindividual."

Last year in the legislature questions were raised around compensation for a P.E.I. psychiatrist who earned $1.1 million in 2014. That physician was never named.

Government eventually revealed the doctor's billings would undergo an audit. There was no update available Wednesday from Henderson on the results of that audit.

A spokesperson for the PEI Medical Society said the group wanted to communicate with its members before making any comment on the legislation.

The group representing Island doctors has been in negotiations with the province over a new contract. The previous contract expired March 31, 2015.