Waiting for Health Canada
Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services
Iqaluit (Apr 02/01) - Getting the federal government to agree to wage parity has been like pulling teeth for Northern dentists.
But now, after months at a deadlock, a new offer and counter offer has been tabled.
The Northwest Territories/Nunavut Dental Association asked Health Canada for a 15 per cent pay hike last June and were offered instead, a three per cent raise.
Talks between the dentists and the government then broke down and remained at an impasse until last month.
That's when Jim Tennant, the president of the association and a dentist in Hay River for 26 years, said the government proposed a six per cent increase.
The association polled its members and the federal offer was rejected.
The dentists were now asking for a raise of nine per cent with an additional three per cent retroactive to April 1, 2000.
"(Health Canada) said they'd get back to us in a week. We haven't heard anything," said Tennant.
"When we called, the guy we were dealing with had gone on holidays," he said.
"We don't feel like we're being taken seriously."
At the heart of the matter are Health Canada's Non-Insured Health Benefits. NIHB is the way the federal government pays territorial dentists for dental services performed for eligible Inuit, Innu and First Nations people. Tennant said dentists in Nunavut and the NWT were vastly underpaid for their services and that the increase they've asked for would merely put them on par with what the government currently pays dentists in the Yukon for the same work.
Furthermore, the discrepancy in dollars and the tangle of paperwork that goes hand-in-hand with NIHB makes it hard for dental clinics in both territories to keep staff. This in turn, affects the quality and consistency of dental care available to Northern residents.
The association has sent several letters to both territorial health ministers asking for assistance with the matter. Tennant said last week that NWT Health Minister Jane Groenewegen said recently she would "aggressively" lend her support and that the association was still waiting for a reply from Nunavut Health Minister Ed Picco.
