Physician about civil duty: must cope with everyday life first

From a medical point of view, an extended civil service is taken a positive thing in health care. But first, daily operations must be strengthened.

“We must first have preparedness to cope with everyday life, that is a priori,” says Elin Karlsson, chairman of the Hospital Medical Association.

The National Board of Health and Welfare is commissioned by the government to partly prepare civil duty for persons who already have a profession for a profession in the healthcare system, and partly to investigate whether young people who pattern could be taken out for medical education and then be required to move in at war or heightened preparedness.

This is basically positive, says Hospital Doctor’s chairman Elin Karlsson, but she sees that it is difficult to have good preparedness even in times without crisis and war.

– It is not really a shortage of healthcare -trained staff, but it is an escape from the healthcare system due to poor conditions and working conditions.

She thinks it is unreasonable to think that it is possible to switch up when healthcare has difficulty dealing with everyday life.

– We have queues and a shortage of care when we instead need incentives to retain the staff in clinical operations.

The Medical Association chairman Sofia Rydgren Stale agrees.

– The absolute best and fastest preparedness measure is to get the existing staff to want to stay in healthcare.

She also sees a danger in the fact that civil duty should be used as a tool to solve the healthcare staffing problems in peacetime.

– Healthcare needs to be strengthened and some form of personnel reserve in the event of a major crisis or war is probably necessary. But it is very important that it is clearly regulated in which cases the civil duty can be invoked. Those who have chosen to provide care should not be a buffer used to solve the care provision of skills in peacetime, says Rydgren Stale.