2024-07-13 20:36:53
To support the operation of NHS hospitals that remain empty of critical specialties despite the continuous announcements of positions for permanent doctors, the leadership of the Ministry of Health asks the private doctors, warning that where there is no willingness to cooperate, “drastic measures” will be taken
The Ministry of Health is asking private doctors to “turn their backs” on the operation of NHS hospitals that remain empty of critical specialties, despite the continuous announcements of permanent doctor positions.
The leadership of the Ministry of Health has invited the medical associations of regions such as Laconia, Xanthi and Kos, where while positions are repeatedly advertised for critical and permanently lacking specialties in the relevant NHS hospitals, there is no interest in covering them, at a time when in the same area private health is “blooming”, to submit proposals for the mobilization of private doctors in the area.
In the event that the private doctors are not willing to cooperate, the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis himself has warned that he will proceed with “drastic measures” on how they will be “convinced” to help the public hospitals, with the relevant decisions expected to be received in the coming days.
Warning from Adonis Georgiadis that he will proceed with “drastic measures” for those who do not show a willingness to cooperate.
“I do not accept as the Minister of Health that in an area there can be a complete inability to operate the hospital due to the lack of a critical specialty and at the same time in the same area there are many private doctors in the same specialty and they pretend that they do not see that the hospital cannot operate. This cannot continue,” Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis emphasized in a televised interview yesterday, referring to the example of Kos, where, as he said, the island’s hospital has been without a pathologist for several years, 14 announcements have been made for pathologist positions. and they have all come out barren. At the same time, according to the minister, there are nine private pathologists on the island.
In fact, the day before yesterday afternoon, Mr. Georgiadis, responding in Parliament to a question from PASOK MP Panagiotas Grigorakou about the understaffing of the Molaon hospital, indirectly left open the possibility that there may be restrictions on the possibility of electronic prescriptions at EOPYY by private individuals who do not want to to help – always for a fee – the NSS. As he said, “a doctor who uses the prescription system of the Greek state through IDIKA, the so-called immaterial prescription, is actually a link in the overall health system of the Greek state. And a doctor, who uses this prescription for his own patients, cannot be indifferent if the hospital next door is about to close.”
Commenting on the minister’s statements to “K”, the president of the Panhellenic Medical Association Athanasios Hexadaktylos points out:
“Kos has seven private physicians, two of whom resigned from the hospital. Three or four private physicians are about 65 years old. Well, our issue is not how to get private doctors to help the NHS, but how to attract new doctors to the hospitals.” He also reminds that the state is asking for the back of doctors whom it itself drove away from the NHS. “In 2014, the Ministry of Health asked the pathologists of the IKA to choose either to be full-time and exclusive employees or to have private practices. In 2018, he terminated the contract of EOPYY contracted physicians who did not want to become family physicians. He is now asking for help from these doctors,” he noted.
Regarding the possibility of removing the possibility of electronic prescriptions from private doctors in these areas, Mr. Exadaktylos notes that this will bring worse results than what he expects to solve. “It practically takes away the right of a doctor to practice medicine, since she will have no other way to prescribe a medicine. And what is the cause that one will be punished? Because he has a clinic in Kos or Sparta. If his practice was e.g. in Tripoli, he would not have this problem. At the very least, the private person will eventually leave the area.”
new “blood”
In addition to helping private individuals, the ministry expects to bring new “blood” to hospitals by strengthening incentives for staffing health units in barren areas. Within the week, the ministerial decision on the new framework for barren regions is expected to be signed, which, among other things, provides that if in a region a notice for the filling of permanent doctor positions is barren more than 2-3 times, this region will automatically be labeled as barren and the benefits provided for (barren area allowance) are added to the remuneration of those who occupy the positions.
The same ministerial order will set an increase in barren allowances, which today remain tied to the basic NHS doctors’ salaries of the 1990s and are unattractive to a new doctor. And according to the PIS, the monthly allowance of doctors who serve in hospitals and health centers of category A barren starts from 11.40 euros and reaches 112.85 euros.
Because we don’t have pathologists
The deforestation of the NHS by pathologists continues, with work burnout, excruciating trips to out-of-county hospitals, low financial earnings, emphasizes in a statement issued yesterday by the Professional Association of Pathologists of Greece (EEPE). “Thus we now have mass resignations of pathologists, while the interest of young doctors in the specialty of Pathology remains low and at the same time the mass flight of young doctors abroad continues.” The EEPE reports that a similar hesitancy is noted in the inclusion of pathologists in the institution of the personal doctor, with the result that the expected success in primary health care (PHC), which could decongest the under-functioning hospitals, is not observed. As for the possibility of restrictions on the possibility of electronic prescribing in EOPYY, they note that “electronic prescribing is an obligation of the state to the patient and not a prerogative of the doctor. The doctor will be paid, he will recommend the appropriate treatment and then, since he will not be able to make an electronic prescription, the patient will have to find out for himself how to be reimbursed for his pharmaceutical expenses.
Source kathimerini.gr
Penny Buluja