2024-03-26 12:31:59
“Trapped” in the Artas Hospital is a radiologist who, although she was appointed to the University Hospital of Ioannina, has been forced to offer her services at the Artas Hospital for five months, due to vacancies in the Radiology Clinic of the Arta hospital.
Where she also served before her appointment at the University Hospital of Ioannina, for two years and two months, in a continuous supervigilance regime, especially after February 2023, when two permanent colleagues of the department left, with only one day of regular leave in the whole of 2023, events that led her to seek another position.
The incident is denounced by the Epirus Hospital Physicians Association, which speaks of unacceptable, degrading and dangerous treatment on the part of the management of Arta Hospital and the 6th Health Region. “At the beginning of September, and in fact on the day of her appointment to the PGNI, she received a mandate for a 3-month transfer to the GN Artas from the Commander of the 6th Ministry of Defense. Shortly before the expiration of the 3-month period, a document was sent to her for a new 3-month extension, with an illegal decision by the administrative director of GN Artas, who does not have the authority to issue such an order. While the legal extension beyond the initial three months requires the mobile doctor’s consent, she was never asked either, but in two of her reports to the 6th Ministry of Health, with which she expressly states that she does not consent to the extension and wishes to return to PGNI where she is her organic position, the administration of the 6th Ministry of Health never responded, validating, in this disdainful manner for her colleague, her forced confinement in the Artas GN”, reports EINI.
In addition to the forced confinement of the radiologist, EINI points out that the existence of only one permanent radiologist at the General Hospital of Artas leads to being burdened with a large number of on-calls far beyond the legal number of seven. Characteristically, in the month of December, she was on duty for 11 days, and in fact, during the week of December 4 to 10, she performed four active shifts in five calendar days (December 4, 5 and 7, 8), with a risk to both her personal health and the safety of patients. Also, that week she was completely alone every day in the hospital’s morning schedule (clinic cases, both ultrasound and CT emergencies). In the month of February, he performed a total of eight active shifts with four holidays (two Saturdays and two Sundays).
And to all this it must be added that the Arta Hospital refuses to pay her travel expenses from Ioannina, where she lives, to Arta.
“The government’s refusal to staff hospital departments with permanent medical staff, through mass and not sporadic recruitments that are a disincentive for doctors to show interest, leads to dangerous understaffing for patients and to mandatory transfers of doctors, which often destroy them lead to their resignations. This continuous practice by governments, with the aim of cutting costs and opening the way for private entry, has also led to extreme incidents of entrapment, work extermination, devaluing of personality and overturning of all life planning”, emphasizes EINI in a statement and formulates the demand to the 6th Ministry of Health to immediately lift the illegal confinement of the radiologist, to return to PGNI, and to pay all her travel expenses from September onwards. It also requires the management of the Artas Hospital to hire an occupational doctor and start recording the occupational risk, so that those in management know that they will be given specific legal responsibilities.