Physicians say shift work experiment doomed to fail

The Croatian association of hospital physicians (HUBOL) said on Wednesday that introducing shift work for hospital physicians solely to cut costs was an experiment by the Health Ministry that was doomed to fail.

Shift work is unfeasible when there is a 25 per cent shortage of physicians in Croatian hospitals and the number of some procedures has been halved since the beginning of the year when shift work was introduced, HUBOL told a joint news conference with the KoHom family medicine coordinating body.

More than 400 physicians have been issued certificates for work abroad and the damage caused to the Croatian health care service with the departure of 35 specialists alone is estimated at over HRK 100 million (approx. EUR 13.2 million), said HUBOL president Trpimir Goluza.

Anesthesiologists, surgeons, internists and radiologists are the most numerous among those leaving for Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and Norway.

KoHom also warned that family physicians were burdened with too many patients and too much paperwork, and proposed abolishing the concession system and reinstating private practice as soon as possible.