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Norway faces possible doctors’ strike as deadline looms for deal

A deadline of midnight on Thursday is approaching for a new collective bargaining agreement over doctors’ working terms in Norway.

Published: 15 October 2020 16:34 CEST
Norway faces possible doctors' strike as deadline looms for deal
Illustration photo: Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

If unions and employer representatives are unable to reach agreement by late Thursday, Norway could see doctors going on strike in the coming weeks, VG reports.

Talks between the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) and the Norwegian Medical Association (NMA) began on Wednesday.

Negotiations between the two sides previously broke down in September, with provisions over on-call working hours a key stumbling block, VG writes.

The NMA has said that it believes the workload of on-call or emergency doctors (vaktleger)is too heavy and that this is to the detriment of both ER doctors and GPs. It has asked for a limit on the amount of on-call work doctors can be required to fulfil.

National broadcaster NRK reported on Thursday that doctors may be working up to 120-hour weeks, while VG’s report cites a Directorate of Health study which found that district doctors covering on-call shifts work an average of 70 hours per week and that this can exceed 100-hour weeks for a small percentage of doctors in smaller municipalities.

The deadline for negotiations is midnight on Thursday, with doctors’ unions scheduled to take member into strike if no new deal is in place.

 

“For about 40 years doctors have been exempt from the working hours provisions of the working environment laws. We can simply no longer accept an unlimited exception. This affects both patients and doctors,” Tor Magne Johnsen, a doctor who has participated in the negotiations, told VG.

The union is asking for doctors to be allowed to consent to working more than seven hours of emergency (legevakt) per week, corresponding to 28 hours of on-call shifts, the newspaper writes.

The association’s president, Marit Hermansen, told VG that everything would be done to reach an agreement with KS but that “like in all (industrial) conflicts, strike is a possible outcome if the parties do not reach agreement”.

KS director Tor Arne Gangsø said that he could not comment on ongoing negotiations but has previously stressed the need for a “long-term solution” to the problem.

READ ALSO: Norway has the world's highest number of doctors and nurses per person

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DOCTORS

Germany’s GPs begin vaccinating patients against Covid-19

For the first time in Germany's vaccination programme, family doctors are allowed to administer jabs.

Published: 6 April 2021 12:59 CEST
Germany's GPs begin vaccinating patients against Covid-19
A doctor in Pforzheim, Baden-Württemberg, talking to a patient about the Covid-19 vaccine on March 30th. Photo: DPA

After the painfully slow start to the inoculation campaign in Germany, a new stage is beginning this week: 35,000 GPs nationwide are planning to give residents vaccinations against coronavirus.

Some practices were due to start on Tuesday April 6th, while others are still waiting for vaccine doses and want to follow in the next few days.

Since the start of the rollout at the end of December, injections have so far been administered mainly in the 430 vaccination centres nationwide.

READ ALSO: Germany to make vaccines available at GP practices: What you need to know

Initially, only a small supply of doses is available to family doctors. In the first week, all practices together will receive 940,000 vaccine doses a week.

In purely mathematical terms, that is about 26 doses per practice per week. In the week of April 26th, however, there will be a significant boost to resources – and at that point GPs can expect a total of more than three million doses each week.

READ ALSO: GPs in Germany call for vaccines to be given according to health not age

How will vaccinating work at GPs?

GP practices have to follow the fixed priority order of who can be vaccinated first in Germany.

READ ALSO: When will I be in line for a Covid-19 vaccination?

There is no central invitation programme for vaccinating patients, according to the federal Health Ministry. The practices can regulate how they allocate vaccination appointments themselves – for example by phone or with online bookings.

Some family doctors have been vaccinating for some time as part of pilot projects – and in Bavaria jabs by GPs started last week in 1,635 practices.

Calls to speed up vaccine campaign

This weeks marks the second quarter the vaccination campaign when more Covid vaccines are expected after scarce supplies in the first quarter of the year.

The Association of Private Health Insurers (Verband der Privaten Krankenversicherung, PKV) is calling on the federal government to quickly push ahead with vaccines.

“The start of the vaccination campaign, also through GP practices, is the right step, but it is not enough to get the coronavirus vaccine to as many people as possible as quickly as at all possible,” association director Florian Reuther told DPA.

“Already at this stage politicians must prepare the next step and make vaccination possible in companies and with all other groups of doctors and dentists as soon as vaccine supplies increase as expected in the next few weeks.”

Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) had said at the end of March that company doctors should only join the vaccination campaign after GPs.

READ ALSO: Germany’s Health Minister promises more freedom to those fully vaccinated

“There is still too little,” Spahn said of the available doses. He said he found it difficult to vaccinate younger employees of companies as long as the older ones were not yet protected.

But Reuther said the infrastructure of company doctors was particularly suitable. “We already have numerous requests from health insurance companies whose company doctors are immediately available to vaccinate their work forces – but unfortunately are not allowed to order vaccine at the moment,” he said.

Many companies had also offered to vaccinate employees’ family members as well. In Reuther’s view, this would also make sense. He called on the federal government to solve the necessary organisational issues now – “and not only when the vaccines are piling up in the yard”.

READ ALSO: Vaccination centres in some German states ‘to close over Easter‘

Vocabulary

GPs/general practitioners – (die) Hausärzte (or der Hausarzt as singular)

Surgeries/practices- (die) Praxen (or die Praxis as singular)

Vaccination centres – (die) Impfzentren

Vaccination appointment (der) Impftermin

Company doctor/in-house doctor – (der) Betriebsarzt

We’re aiming to help our readers improve their German by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Let us know.

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