Doctors complain about too long working hours

Doctors complain about too long working hours in Germany's hospitals

02/17/2011

In some cases, doctors in clinics have to work up to 55 hours a week because about 12,000 jobs in German hospitals are not filled. The Marburger Bund warns in the face of these numbers from diagnostic and treatment errors. 41 percent of the doctors said they were dissatisfied or even very dissatisfied.

12 thousand doctors unoccupied
Again and again, the wages of doctors in clinics have increased significantly in recent years. Nevertheless, the field of work in hospitals for doctors seems unattractive. According to the medical association „Marburger Bund“ Around 12,000 jobs in Germany's clinics are not occupied by doctors. In view of the lack of doctors warn medical representatives from misdiagnosis and treatment errors. Due to the lack of doctors, the clinicians have to take over large parts of tasks. This results in massive overtime, some complain physicians over a weekly working time of a maximum of 55 hours.

So far largest medical survey
The collection of the numbers results from a member survey of the Marburger Bund. The chairman of the medical association made it clear that twice as many vacancies are vacant, as officially confirmed. Due to the excessive working hours, many clinicians are probably unfocused, the risk of treatment errors can no longer be ruled out. "If fewer people take care of you than planned, that's a problem“ warned the chairman of the federal government, Rudolf Henke. To protect the patients, more clinicians must be hired, so the demand of Henke.

Nationwide, the association had interviewed about 12 thousand clinicians. This high number of survey participants is the largest ever survey of physicians of this kind. In the evaluation of the member survey, it became apparent that on average around 1.5 jobs are vacant in each hospital department. The approximately 8500 departments therefore lack 12,000 doctors. According to the German Hospital Institute, however, only about 6,000 doctors are missing. Henke stressed that the lack of doctors in Germany's clinics has been so far „numerically underestimated“.

120 million overtime hours
Due to the understaffing, Germany's hospital doctors have to work massively overtime. Around 140,000 clinicians work in Germany. Many have to work at a full-time job about 55 hours a week. The Marburger Bund calculated from the poll numbers an overtime of 120 million. „The hospital doctors are still working at the limit. The workload is sometimes unbearably high“ states Henke. Weekly working hours of 60 hours and over have decreased by 5 percent compared to 2007, but in total, 76 percent of full-time employees still work 50 hours or more per week. As a result, 41 percent of respondents rated their working conditions as bad or very bad.

Stress and overload lead to diagnostic errors
The German Medical Association in Berlin recently presented the current statistics of treatment errors. It was noticeable that there are always false diagnoses and treatment errors, because doctors are under stress and continuous stress. Many doctors are working 24 hours a day in constant use because they have to compensate for the shortage of doctors. A panel of experts for medical malpractice in Dusseldorf came to the conclusion that the physicians in hospitals have little capacity to conduct first anamnesis calls in a timely manner. There would hardly be time for adequate patient talk. The Commission sees this as the main reason for incorrect misdiagnosis.

High bureaucratic effort
The Marburg Federation also criticized that hospital doctors are also exposed to an enormous bureaucracy. To process reports, physicians have to spend around two hours each day. This time is missing again for the treatment of patients. In order to remedy the shortage of skilled workers in Germany's hospitals, the Marburger Bund demands more funding for clinics. „Without the impact of our physician-specific collective agreements, the pressure to emigrate would be much greater, Henke said. The negotiated wage increases therefore represent an important contribution to the security of supply in the clinics. Now, the policy must discuss how the shortage of physicians is effectively countered, added the medical representative.

Clinic landscape needs to be modernized
The Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV) holds against it and pointed out that the clinics have never been allocated such high financial resources, as it is in the case now. In 2011 hospitals will receive allocations of over 60 billion euros. The clinics themselves would have to implement modernization measures, according to the demand of the GKV Verband. (Sb)

Also read:
Treatment errors: doctors are often overburdened
Storage of medical treatment errors
Every tenth hospital treatment hurts

Image: Michael Bührke