WITH A QUOTA OF 10% FOR THIRD COUNTRY NATIONALS, THE PRIVATE SECTOR OF HEALTH IS ON ITS KNEES - MODERATE KNOWLEDGE OF GREEK AND ONLY 2 YEARS OF REGISTRATION LEAVE ARE PROVIDED FOR BY AMENDMENTS OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH - Filenews 17/3
The private health sector is on its knees. The consultations behind the scenes are intense and have a single purpose: To convince the nurses' unions to agree to the changes in the legislation, in order to pave the way for the employment of foreign nurses, to fill the gaps that currently exist in private hospitals and to avoid taking measures that will inevitably lead to patient suffering.
The amendments submitted to the Parliament by the Ministry of Health provide, among other things:
>> Moderate and not "elementary", as is currently provided, knowledge of the Greek language.
>> They determine that the number of foreign nurses will not exceed 10% of the total nursing staff in each hospital or other health service structure.
>> They set as a condition that a foreign nurse does not take over as a shift manager.
>> They stipulate that the validity of the permit granted to personnel from third countries will be only two years.
These changes, according to information from the Ministry of Health, came about after consultation between the bodies representing nurses and the competent nursing directorate at the request of the Parliament.
However, nurses do not seem to accept them, with their announcements talking about "unilateral" decisions and emphasizing the need for better consultation.
Of course, the attitude of the bodies representing the nurses and especially the trade unions have provoked the anger of the private sector with the Federation of Employers and Industrialists, the Association of Rehabilitation and Recovery Centers, the Pancyprian Association of Private Hospitals and the Pancyprian Medical Association warning of taking measures, even turning their fire on the Parliament.
Yesterday, the background was frantic with the Ministry of Health and the parliamentary committee on Health making efforts to secure the agreement of the unions. In fact, in the discussion, unofficially, alternative proposals were put before the nurses, which, however, the private health sector was not aware of.
OEB issued a statement entitled: "Patients and the health sector cannot be hostages of corporatist pressures", thus blaming the Parliament, since the new round of reactions and public disagreements arose after the decision of the parliamentary committee on Health last Thursday, not to discuss the amendments submitted by the Minister of Health to avoid clashes with the trade unions in the middle of an election period.
In his statements to "F", the general director of OEB, Michalis Antoniou, wondered "how do we think we will serve the health sector when we have a law on community nursing, when a new law on palliative care services is pending before the Parliament, when we have a law on rehabilitation centers, but we do not have nurses and at the same time we prevent the finding of nurses to staff them?"
The president of the Association of Rehabilitation and Recovery Centers, Kostas Ioulianos, said for his part that in the case of the Centers, there is also a legal issue "as now that the legislation for rehabilitation centers has been passed and we are in the process of making our applications to secure the relevant licenses, we must come and present an organizational chart. What organizational chart should I present when I don't have the necessary number of nurses? The main issue, however, is that without nurses, without a sufficient number of nurses, the quality and quantity of services we can provide is affected. Safeguards should be put in place, but trade unionism cannot stand in the way of upgrading and expanding the health services provided to patients"
The president of the Pancyprian Medical Association, Petros Agathangelou, stated that "a solution must be found and this solution must be final. It is a real problem and we must all recognize it. It is one thing to trade unionism and another thing to let the problems grow, for the sake of trade unionism. The solution that can help us at the moment is to go abroad. The private sector must be facilitated and we must not be led to extreme situations. Measures are never the best solution in the health sector because patients are victimized."
In the coming days, OEB is expected to consult with the associations of hospitals and rehabilitation centers and after proceeding with an extraordinary assembly, if there are no developments, it will proceed with the announcement of protest measures. Among the measures, of course, is the closure of hospitals and services.
