MDs asking for the moon: Williams

Newfoundland and Labrador's physicians have made excessive demands for their next contract, Premier Danny Williams says.

Williams, who has been sharply critical of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association and its defence of St. John's pathologists, said the NLMA is asking for too much at the bargaining table.

"Through the roof. Too high," Williams told reporters Wednesday, commenting on the association's pay demands.

"Can't be dealt with. Can't be satisfied. Can't be answered."

Relations between Williams and the NLMA have been frosty for several years, with Williams taking sharp aim Wednesday at the NLMA's request for cooler rhetoric from the government over troubles at Eastern Health.

Williams lashed out at pathologists in St. John's, calling an external report — which described the working relationship at the authority's labs as dysfunctional and becoming toxic — an indictment of the doctors involved.

There are more than 1,000 salaried and fee-for-service physicians in Newfoundland and Labrador. Talks to reach a new contract have been underway for almost a year.

Williams did not reveal specific details on the talks.

Documents obtained by CBC News last spring indicated the doctors wanted their salaries to be in the top 25 per cent of what physicians are paid in Atlantic Canada.

The premier said a complication is the large one-time raise the province gave some specialists — including pathologists and medical oncologists — in 2008.

Williams told the association's executive director, Rob Ritter, at the time that it was a special case.

"We had an undertaking from him that the raises that were put in place — in order for recruitment and retention, for those people at that point in time — would not be subsequently used in a collective bargaining process in order to up the ante," Williams said.

"That since has happened."

The NLMA is refusing to discuss the negotiations.