Hundreds of clinics across Germany are on strike

Plannable interventions in hundreds of hospitals will probably be postponed this Thursday: the Marburger Bund is calling for a nationwide strike. He criticizes the workload being too high – with dramatic consequences.

The doctors’ union Marburger Bund has called for a strike in around 460 municipal hospitals for today, Thursday. “Plannable interventions will not be able to take place in most municipal clinics today,” said association chairwoman Susanne Johna to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND, Thursday editions). “Of course we are maintaining the emergency service in these hospitals that are on strike.” An occupation similar to that at weekends is ensured.

The strike is taking place throughout Germany, with the exception of Berlin and Hamburg. Among other things, the Marburger Bund criticizes the high workload in clinics: “In some places, the working conditions in hospitals are so bad that many doctors leave the clinic and, for example, set up their own practice or work as employees in a medical care center,” said Johna the RND.

Doctors resign or switch to reduced positions

In the meantime, more and more doctors would reduce their working hours and take on an 80 percent position. “That means colleagues forego salary in order to be guaranteed at least one day off a week.” One reason for this is the large amount of overtime. “Every day that you don’t come to the clinic is a day that you don’t work overtime,” said the association’s chairwoman.

“Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, the workload has increased significantly,” she noted. The stress in the intensive care unit, in the emergency room and in the infection wards is particularly high. “In many intensive care units, it was only possible to care for patients because doctors also took on nursing tasks and worked even more overtime.”

The Marburger Bund is demanding a linear salary increase of 5.5 percent for the approximately 55,000 doctors for a period of one year. In addition, there should be clear limits for on-call duty and a general limitation of on-call duty to a maximum of twelve calls per month. The employers offered 3.3 percent more wages in two stages.