BREMEN (dpa-AFX) – In the fight against impending gaps in supply and the shortage of skilled workers in the healthcare system, the German medical profession is demanding not only more medical study places, but above all noticeable relief in everyday clinical work. In view of the latest developments, personnel and shift planning are often no longer up to date, criticized Ellen Lundershausen, Deputy Head of the Federal Chamber of Physicians, at the Doctors’ Day.
“We have seen an enormous reduction in the length of stays in the hospital and, as a result, a higher throughput of patients, which means an enormous workload,” said the doctor in Bremen on Thursday. In the outpatient area, the workload of colleagues has also increased by more than 40 percent over the past few years.
This increasing workload, as well as the general implications of an aging society, urgently required employers to show more appreciation for their medical staff. This includes modern and relieving work models such as part-time work, but also, for example, better childcare for parents from the medical and nursing professions – for example through many daycare centers that are open for long periods close to inpatient facilities.
In this way, the attractiveness of medical professions can be increased and some of the shortage of skilled workers can be alleviated. “You can achieve more if these conditions are designed better,” said Lundershausen. At the same time, more and more doctors were retiring.
The Doctors’ Day reinforced its appeal to education and science policymakers to create more medical study places in the federal states. “But it’s not just the university places,” said Lundershausen. Medical training itself must also be reformed. In many cases, first-year students “will only arrive in healthcare in 12 to 15 years – in our opinion, that’s too long a time.” And women now make up 62 percent of graduates in Germany, but they in particular “are not always offered optimal working conditions”.
Lundershausen’s colleague Gnther Matheis said that there should be more appreciation in general. This is not only expressed in “processing time units”. More recruitment, better hospital planning and appropriate part-time models are necessary in order to “secure care now and in the future”.
The number of medical study places must be expanded in parallel. “We used to have 16,000, now we have 11,000,” said Matheis. “The patients also feel the effects every day.” From the point of view of the Federal Medical Association, at least 6,000 should be added in a shorter period of time. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had also called on the federal states to expand the range of courses./jap/DP/jha