Pediatricians at the Capital City Health Center: We have been enduring pressure for months to accept night work

Pediatricians at the Capital City Health Center claim that they have been under pressure for months to accept night work and provide pediatric care during the night.

In a letter they submitted to Television Vijesti, they state that anyone who has ever set foot in a health center's pediatrics department knows how crowded it is and how busy pediatricians are.

"Insufficient number of doctors, too many patients, poor working conditions at certain points, the situation where one doctor works instead of two or three, is the everyday life of the pediatric service of the Capital City Health Center. The pediatrics department's working hours are from 7 am to 21 pm, every day of the year. In addition to regular work and huge crowds in everyday work, weekend on-call, emergency vaccinations and ultrasounds of baby hips are also scheduled. This level of work, workload and fatigue is beyond all limits of endurance, especially during virus seasons, when the number of patients is many times higher than normal. On top of all this, the Ministry of Health is pressuring pediatricians at the health center to take over night shifts, which would inevitably disrupt the already barely sustainable system of work of primary care pediatricians," the letter from the pediatricians at the Capital City Health Center states.

The letter also states that when a couple of doctors are absent from the work process (due to illness, vacation, education), the two-shift work system is barely organized, because there are no pediatricians.

"Patients suffer, doctors suffer, the principle of work of the selected pediatrician cannot be respected. Consultations are canceled and moved, because the doctor has to go to another point, where there is no one to work. In these conditions, patients wait for hours, and doctors work in conditions of great fatigue, overstrain of their capacities and with an increased risk of medical error. In such conditions, the management of the Health Center agrees with the Government's conclusion that the Health Center of the Capital City organizes pediatric care during the night, in the premises of the Institute for Children's Diseases, in another institution. Agrees, although it knows that in this way the work of the institution will be further disrupted, and the already exhausted doctors, working in the third shift, will burn out beyond measure," said the pediatricians of the Health Center of the Capital City.

They state that it is not an obstacle that the decision discriminates against pediatricians at the Capital City Health Center compared to all other primary care pediatricians in Montenegro, because only they are required to work at night.

"In all other cities, pediatric care during the night is provided by hospitals or the Emergency Medical Service (HMP). All this does not prevent the administration from offering pediatricians from the Health Center an annex to the contract, by which they either accept to work at night, or the institution has the right to terminate their contract, and call into question the existence of their families. In the face of such treatment of people who shoulder the responsibility of caring for the health of children in the largest city in the country, one remains speechless. Decades of neglect, carelessness and unplanned health policy should be resolved quickly, over the shoulders of those who are burdened with work beyond measure. While various holders of purchased diplomas sit in crammed armchairs in comfortable offices, the most educated people in this country, in their clinics every day, burn out from working in a dysfunctional system, which survives solely thanks to their engagement, empathy and care for the youngest," said the pediatricians of the Capital City Health Center.

In a letter delivered to Television Vijesti, they also said that they hope that this relationship will not leave the Capital City Health Center without a pediatrician.

"Because they could not solve this problem with conclusions, decisions and decrees from their comfortable armchairs. No one could solve it. Lege artis diplomas are not easily obtained. Until further notice, there will be no new pediatricians," the letter from the pediatricians of the Capital City Health Center states.