© René Pfeiffer / RTL
Officials from the Federation of Luxembourgish Hospitals (FHL) gave a press conference on Monday morning, during which they presented a series of measures designed to improve working conditions for doctors in hospitals.
A week after six cardiologists confirmed their intentions to resign from the Centre Hospitalier du Nord, the FHL has issued a press release to express its support for the hospital and outline a series of measures to help ensure continuity in Luxembourg's healthcare sector.
"We need more people for the same amount of work, but fewer are available", noted FHL president Philippe Turk during a respective press briefing on Monday morning. The Federation thus advocates for a wider offer of medical programmes at the University of Luxembourg and for better regulation of the competition between the public and private healthcare sectors.
Similarly important is the payment for on-call shifts, noted Turk: "This issue is long-overdue and I also think that politicians have understood that it is no longer up to date and we expect them to take a position in the coming days. Meetings are scheduled and we hope for reasonable solutions for all parties."
On-call shifts should be mandatory and doctors should also be paid when completing administrative tasks for the hospital. In general, practitioners employed in hospitals should get higher salaries, which is currently adding to the imbalance.
Turk elaborated: "To that you can add the work-life balance, which makes many doctors consider that they have the same financial means but less stress when working in a private office."
Although the FHL does not believe that there is an elevated level of unhappiness among doctors working in hospitals, officials acknowledge that the pandemic has left its marks on moral.
Marc Berna, director of the Robert Schuman Hospital, explained: "Since we had to keep beds empty to potentially accommodate infectious patients, we were unable to care for the same amount of people, which affected our numbers and in return our means for negotiating with the [National Health Fund]."
The director of the Ettelbruck hospital announced that he received two applications from new cardiologists in the meantime.
