Details of HS | Hus unexpectedly forbade the doctors’ additional work

Hus intends to stop dismantling the cutting queues with a contract like a wall. The reason is the savings needed at high speed.

In operating theatres, additional work on top of the actual working day is prohibited, which has shortened queues in recent years.

From the patient’s point of view, this can mean that they have to wait even longer for the surgery.

From the point of view of doctors or other professionals, this brings surprising changes to the schedules already agreed for the summer.

Husi’s board of directors will decide at its Monday morning meeting where the extra savings of millions required for the current year will be taken from.

Hus has not agreed to publish the presentation in advance, but the additional work ban has already been announced to the personnel in several result areas in the last week of May. HS has seen a document that explains the matter.

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The additional work ban has already been announced to personnel in several profit areas in the last week of May.

In Hus since the pandemic, there have been long queues for treatment. Many patients have had to wait longer than the law allows. During the waiting period, the disease may get worse. Prolonged disability will be expensive for society as well.

In the spring, for example, almost 25,000 people waited for day surgery or a place in the bed ward. One in four of them had waited in line for more than half a year.

Queues have been contracted to be shorter so that Husi’s professionals have agreed to put in additional work.

Additional work usually means that work is done on top of the actual working time but without overtime compensation. Doctors’ contracts, however, have their own special conditions for additional clinical work, i.e. voluntary queue cutting at the initiative of the employer.

In Hus, a decision had already been made earlier in the spring that this kind of queue breaking would be allowed at least until the fall. In many places, additional work lists for June or the entire summer have also been agreed upon.

Now these agreed additional works will be canceled from mid-June, at least for the planned surgeries.

Some exceptions are allowed.

With the management’s permission, certain cancer surgeries can be performed as additional work. Likewise, for example, emergency surgeries are often the worst congested in orthopedic surgery. The doctor can be paid a performance fee if the day in the operating room stretches out unplanned.

Huss on Monday, the group’s board will discuss additional savings of millions, which should be implemented during the current year.

The agenda also includes a broader adjustment program to be extended for the coming years, but no final decisions have been made yet. Part of the long-term savings is related to the decisions politicians nailed down already at the beginning of May about the division of labor in hospitals, such as closing down the Lohja maternity ward.

This year’s quick savings, on the other hand, can in principle be outlined as soon as Monday morning, but unlike in politics in general, the exact proposal has not been announced before the meeting.

Chairman of the Board of Directors Risto Rautava (cook) said on Saturday, that one proposed saving is a ban on recruitment. Although a new employee is not hired to replace a retiring employee unless it is necessary.

Managing director Matti Bergendahl said earlier that the first savings target is purchases from external operators. He would not like to interfere with the services or his own personnel, but he thought that with savings in mind, we have to “look at everything possible”.

Correction June 2, 2024 at 3:08 p.m.: Edited the section on additional work allowances. Earlier in the article it was written that you get a normal salary for the time of additional work. Doctors’ contracts, however, have their own special conditions for compensation that can be paid for additional clinical work, i.e. voluntary queue cutting at the initiative of the employer.