The hospital staff in the 18 clinics in Upper Austria have accumulated more than 2.5 million hours of vacation and time credit – this corresponds to around 285 years that the employees in the areas of nursing, medical-technical service, midwives and administrative staff as of December 31, 2021 have accumulated. Physicians are not included in this calculation.
“And before that, a lot of overtime was paid – so you can imagine how much work the employees in the hospitals did,” said Heidemarie Staflinger from the AK department for economic, social and social policy at a press conference yesterday. In this case, the Upper Austrian Chamber of Labor made several demands in order to relieve the burden on the staff in the hospitals. Three years ago, the chamber presented a study on personnel calculations in Upper Austrian hospitals. On this basis, the AK made numerous demands, which the state had not yet responded to.
The personnel calculation, according to which the individual hospitals have to comply, was particularly criticized at yesterday’s press conference. This was last worked out in the 1990s and only makes vague specifications for the personnel key.
According to Heidemarie Staflinger, this is one of the main reasons for the heavy workload on the employees: “According to the working atmosphere index, 54.8 percent of the nursing staff feel heavily burdened by the mentally demanding work, which is alarming.” 57 percent of those surveyed cannot imagine staying in work until retirement.
Andreas Stangl therefore repeated the demands of three years ago: 20 percent more employees are needed in the hospitals, which corresponds to 2500 full-time equivalents. In addition, according to Stangl, the downtimes should be continuously recorded and taken into account in the personnel calculation, so that additional workers are available in the event of absences.
“The hospital staff likes their job, otherwise the system would not have worked for a long time. It’s time for the state to finally take action,” says Stangl. (vaba)
Source: Nachrichten
