The province’s tentative plan to pay some doctors upwards of $500 an hour if the H1N1 pandemic escalates into a public state of emergency is getting a thumbs down from the Alberta Liberal leader, who is a doctor.

The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) has told its members that they could make over $400 per hour for evenings and over $500 for nightshifts if the province declares a state of emergency.

David Swann calls the plan a “failure of stewardship” on the government’s part. “It reflects a very poor relationship between this administration and health professionals,” says Swann. “If they had a healthy relationship with health professionals in this province, they wouldn’t even be talking about that level of pay.”

But AMA president Noel Grisdale says that’s not the case. “Physicians are going to be there to take care of patients regardless of pay,” he says. The wages could be that high, he says, because physicians wouldn’t get sick pay and benefits like other health employees if they had to miss work during an emergency.

“I agree that that’s a big number, and the idea that physicians would be making that on an ongoing basis, long-term — that’s not what we’re talking about,” says Grisdale. “We’re talking about a state of public emergency, and the details of who and how that would apply, under what situations, still need to be worked out.”