Too few doctors in the public health service

Public health service suffers from lack of doctors

05/11/2012

There is a shortage of doctors in the public health service. The association chairman of the Association of Doctors of the Public Health Service (BVÖGD), Ute Teichert-Barthel, pointed this out at yesterday's kick-off of the 62nd Scientific Congress of the BVÖGD.

The public health service is in addition to the outpatient and inpatient facilities, the third pillar in the health service and needs adequate facilities with medical officers, said Teichert-Barthel in her welcome speech at this year's BVÖGD Association Congress in Erfurt. „Due to the poor tariff situation in the ÖGD, we lack numerous doctors and other professional staff“, so the criticism of the association chairman.

200 public health services unoccupied
For example, public health departments and institutions such as the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA), the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut fall into the area of ​​the public health service (ÖGD) (PEI) or the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). The significance of these institutions for the health of the population is hardly noticeable in everyday life, but in crisis situations such as the 2009 swine flu or the EHEC epidemic last year, the facilities of the ÖGD quickly become the focus of public interest and usually play a key role in crisis management. But this is only with an adequate staffing, which is currently not guaranteed according to Ute Teichert-Barthel. According to the expert „at the last census last year, around 200 public medical offices were not filled nationwide“, remuneration being one of the main reasons for this.

Bad tariff situation Cause of the lack of doctors in the ÖGD
The „Bad tariff situation of the doctors in the public health service“ is the main reason for the insufficient staffing and lack of young people in the ÖGD, emphasized the head of the association in her speech at the opening event of the 62nd Scientific Congress of the BVÖGD and the Federal Association of Dentists of the Public Health Service (BZÖG). Because „Specialists who want to move from the clinic to a health department are set back there approximately to the salary level of a professional beginner“, The bottom line is a salary loss of more than 1,000 euros per month“, Teichert-Barthel continues. The problem should actually be remedied within the framework of collective bargaining for the municipal public health service, which has been ongoing since autumn 2010, but so far no acceptable offer has been submitted by the opposing party, the association chairman of the BVÖGD complained. ever „the pay gap increases, the fewer doctors decide to work in the public health service“, emphasized the expert, adding that the association is currently also considering warning strikes.

Prevention and hospital hygiene as future topics
The association's chairman of the BVÖGD also addressed two topical issues in her speech, which the public health service believes to be of major importance. On the one hand, this is the development of a broad-based prevention strategy called for by the Federal Government, in which Teichert-Barthel believes that the public health service should be urgently involved. According to the head of the association, the medical officers have access to a large number of institutions, such as kindergartens or schools, and in any case pursue a societal goal, whereas in outpatient or inpatient care the focus is more on the needs of individual patients. The other aspect, in which Teichert-Barthel hopes for a stronger integration of the ÖGD, is the subject of hospital hygiene. It was indeed to be welcomed that some politicians called for concrete regulations on the number of hospital hygienists, the hygiene-related doctors and the hygienists per bed number. However, parallel to an increase in staff in the ÖGD, „because the infection-hygienic monitoring of clinics, old people's homes and medical practices lies with the health authorities“, Teichert-Barthel emphasized. (Fp)

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