Medical Association of Thessaloniki: Recruitment and not recruitment of private doctors

The Medical Association of Thessaloniki (ITH) addresses a last appeal “for mobilization and not for recruitment of private doctors” as this morning the decision of the leadership of the Ministry of Health to order, from today and for a month, private doctors specializing in Pulmonology, Pathology and Of General Medicine, which are contracted with EOPYY and have their professional headquarters within the Regions of Western Macedonia, Central Macedonia, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and Thessaly.

“At this time of battle, we call on all of you to voluntarily assist your colleagues in the NSS with simultaneous coverage of a civil liability contract by the IST and with working conditions that you will choose in order to avoid recruitment”, it is mentioned -among other things- in an announcement of the IST .

As the president of ISTH Nikos Nitsas stated to APE-MPE, already more than 20 private doctors in Thessaloniki have expressed interest in supporting public hospitals in the fight against the Covid pandemic, while the selection of those who will be ordered will be made by lot by the doctors of the specific specialties contracted with EOPYY.

“From the beginning of the pandemic, we believe in the mobilization of all colleagues and we are strongly opposed to mobilization. The Medical Association of Thessaloniki has been making every effort for a week now, so that the help of the colleagues of the National Health System on a voluntary basis can prevent the recruitment. More than 20 of our colleagues have already expressed interest and are working alongside our colleagues at the NSS, who for the second winter are struggling to tame the 4th wave of the pandemic, lifting the burden of NSS understaffing, paid with multiple earnings of our colleagues in Europe. On the other hand, the private doctors and especially the family doctors of Pathology and General Medicine, as well as the contracted Pulmonologists with EOPYY, due to the non-existence of a complete PHC in our country, which is combined with the understaffing of the public PHC that we experience. In recent years, they have been charged with the heavy burden of treating patients at home so that only those who need treatment can be admitted to our hospitals. “Another difficulty is the removal of private doctors from the daily life of the hospital, for which the state should have taken care accordingly for months”, it is mentioned in the announcement of ISTH.

According to the decision published in the Official Gazette, doctors of the specialties that are required, must appear at 8 in the morning of the next day from the delivery of the order sheet to the hospital or the clinic designated in it to perform duties corresponding to that of Curator B ‘. Doctors are obliged during the period of ordering their services in the hospital, in which they are called to appear, to observe the schedule and the schedule, as well as to participate in the on-call system of the hospital and the clinic in which they are included by the Hospital Commander or his legal deputy.