2024-07-10 16:39:14
On the condition that the operation and productivity of the public hospital where they work will not be disrupted, as well as that they will not “pump” patients who have examined in the NHS clinics, NHS doctors and dentists will soon be able to practice private work in time outside their regular hours and on-call. Yesterday, the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis and the Deputy Minister of Health Marios Themistokleous signed a decision on the terms and conditions of work in the private sector of NHS doctors (any business, except for the supply companies of public health units), an intervention which the government proceeded to to make the public health system more attractive for doctors, who will now have the possibility to increase their salaries.
As stated in the ministerial decision, NHS doctors cannot practice private clinical work on patients who were examined in the regular clinics of the health unit in which they work or on those patients who are on the single operating theater list. Their private work should not lead to disruption or variation of the on-call schedule, the all-day operation of the hospital, the number of surgical operations, medical visits, diagnostic and interventional procedures and paraclinical examinations. The comparison of productivity is made with the six months preceding the submission of the applications, while the maximum allowed deviation in the productivity indicators of the clinics and departments of the hospital is 10%. For the doctors of the pathology field, the number of regular surgeries performed by all the doctors of their clinic or health center is taken into account, for the doctors of the surgical field, the number and severity of the clinic’s surgeries and for the doctors of the laboratory sector all of the actions of the department.
The doctors concerned should obtain a special permit – of six months’ duration – from the administrator or president of the hospital in which they work or the administrator of the relevant Ministry of Health. Applications are submitted during the second fortnight of December and May. Especially this year, the applications will be submitted within the first 20 days from the publication of the ministerial decision and concern the second half of 2024.
Competent authorities for carrying out compliance checks are the governor or president of the hospital, the governor of the relevant Ministry of Health, the locally competent regions and medical associations. Possible violations result in the immediate revocation of the private sector employment permit and a ban on submitting a new application for a period of six months. In the case of a first relapse, the duration of the ban extends to two years, while with a second relapse the NHS doctor definitively loses the right to practice privately.
Source kathimerini.gr
Penny Buluja