ER docs top salary list amid physician shortage

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ER doctors out-earn Dr. Brian Postl.

WINNIPEG — EMERGENCY room doctors continue to cash in on the physician shortfall, with some banking salaries worth more than half a million dollars in 2008.

According to the WRHA's latest annual staff compensation report, released Tuesday, 35 of the 50 highest-paid staff are ER doctors.

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(WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

Many even out-earned some of the WRHA's best-known senior administrators, including president and chief executive officer Brian Postl and Dr. Brock Wright, the senior vice-president of clinical services.

Last year was the first full year of a hefty fee increase that started in the summer of 2007 designed to woo doctors into the city's four community hospital emergency rooms. The deal offered doctors salary hikes worth between 25 and 50 per cent, making them among the highest-paid ER physicians in the country.

Emergency room physician Dr. Ronald Allan Scrapneck, who banked $568,962 last year, was the highest-paid person in the Winnipeg health region.

Scrapneck's salary remained relatively static from the year before, but other ER physicians saw big increases.

Dr. Werner Van Dyk made $504,840 in 2008, nearly triple what he earned in 2007. And Dr. Robert Patrick Kiz's salary almost doubled to $426,605.

But WRHA staff noted that some ER docs may have given up their private practices to work more hours in the ER, which would have saved Manitoba Health money on the fee-for-service side. And they say ER doctors who make more are also simply working more shifts.

Better salaries mean Winnipeg's community hospitals are short just two positions out of 42, a dramatic improvement from a couple of years ago.

Postl was given a 12 per cent pay hike in 2008, in part to fend off recruiters from other provinces, said Dr. John Wade, chairman of the WRHA's board. "We have to pay a competitive price and we actually pay him a lot less than he'd be making in the rest of the country," said Wade. "He's worth every penny."

Management salaries in the WRHA are frozen this year as part of a provincial edict.

The list of WRHA salaries, released every year, doesn't include hospitals funded by the WRHA but run by their own boards, like St. Boniface, Victoria, Concordia or Seven Oaks. The list also doesn't include CancerCare Manitoba, which is also managed by a separate board.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

PERSON POSITION SALARY % CHANGE

Dr. Ronald Allan Scrapneck emergency physician $568,962 up 3% since 2007

Dr. Mehran Samimi emergency physician $528,559 up 26%

Dr. Werner Van Dyk emergency physician $504,840 up 178%

Dr. Peter Bosma emergency physician $432,617 up 86%

Dr. Robert Patrick Kiz emergency physician $426,605 up 97%

Dr. Joe Wiatrowski emergency physician $421,129 down 1.3%

Dr. Brian Postl president and CEO $418,200 up 12%

Dr. Donovan Gray emergency physician $392,854 up 69%

Dr. Leslie McIntosh emergency physician $390,249 up 31%

Dr. Ricardo Lobato de Faria emergency physician $383,144 up 28%

-- Source: WRHA Statement of Public Sector Compensation Disclosure, 2008 and 2007

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 2, 2009 A4