We do not know who decided the state hospital working hours, but whoever it was deserves an award for cluelessness. Having the working hours for government offices apply to state hospitals and giving doctors and nurses the status of civil servants, not only increases the operating costs and restricts the full utilisation of facilities, but also provides a poor service to members of the public.

Hospitals only treat emergency cases after 3pm, while staff that work after this hour are paid overtime rates. The idea of staggered working hours or a shift system that are in place at all organisations that operate round the clock are out of the question for state hospitals. This means labour costs are much higher than at private hospitals and clinics, which also function pretty well with a much smaller ratio of nurses to beds

What is even worse, is that operating theatres are closed after 3pm and only used for emergency cases, while expensive medical equipment is under-utilised, which is bad business. If there was no demand for operations and specialist healthcare, this state of affairs could have been tolerated, but this is not the case. On the contrary, waiting lists for operations are growing longer, accelerated by Gesy covering in-patient care.

Under pressure from patients’ groups and individuals not prepared to wait for a year or two for routine surgery, the government resolved to extend normal working hours to the afternoon. Okypy, the state medical services in charge of hospitals, has been involved in talks with nursing unions to secure their agreement to the change of hours, but has not made much progress. It was reported, earlier this week, that nursing unions wanted double the amount offered by Okypy for their members to work afternoons, because anything less would not act as an incentive.

There has to be a big money incentive, because afternoon work would be on a voluntary basis! Are we to deduce that if there are not enough volunteers one week, the hospitals would cancel all scheduled afternoon operations and patient visits? To add to the absurdity, the two nursing unions have proposed that in July and August there would be no afternoon work because most of their members go on holiday and hospitals would be understaffed.

This is what happens when a government thinks it can have efficiently-functioning hospitals, staffed by workers civil servant status working conditions. Unless the work status of hospital workers changes and new, rational working hours are imposed hospitals will continue to be dysfunctional organisations offering a poor and slow service at a very high cost, undermining the whole health system in the process.