Status: 05/09/2023 12:53 p.m
Doctors at municipal hospitals in Lower Saxony are on strike today: Some clinics are therefore not carrying out any planned treatments. Emergency care will be provided.
Many doctors from Lower Saxony made their way to Frankfurt on Tuesday morning. A central rally will take place there at noon. In Lower Saxony there are actions in front of the municipal clinics – for example in Lüneburg and Oldenburg. Strikers gather there to protest for more money.
Marburger Bund demands 2.5 percent more wages
The Marburger Bund is demanding more money for doctors at municipal hospitals. Specifically, it is about 2.5 percent more wages and compensation for the price increases of the past few months. “We have been waiting for months for an offer to be made and for us to be paid the inflation adjustment that was promised to us,” said Wolfgang Koß, senior physician at the Braunschweig Municipal Clinic on NDR Lower Saxony. The fact that the Association of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA) has not yet made an adequate offer shows how little respect doctors are shown.
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Marburger Bund: “No other option than strike”
“The VKA still shows no serious willingness to negotiate with us, let alone to submit a constructive offer. We are not prepared to continue this disrespectful game in the next round of negotiations on May 22nd,” criticized Hans Martin Wollenberg, chairman of the Marburg Federation of Lower Saxony. There is no option other than stopping work.
VKA criticizes warning strike
The negotiating partner, the association of municipal employers’ associations, sees it differently. Chief negotiator Wolfgang Heyl is convinced: “We were able to make significant progress in the round of negotiations with the Marburger Bund the week before last. It is therefore completely unfounded that the union is now calling for industrial action again. The current status of negotiations does not require a warning strike, because we are on the home stretch.” The VKA made an offer: The doctors should receive an inflation compensation payment of 3,000 euros.
What are the effects of the warning strike?
It is said that emergency care should be ensured in any case. “At the moment we are assuming that there may be delays or postponements in planned and non-urgent examinations and interventions. The experience of the past few years has shown that the patients affected react with great understanding,” said a spokesman for the Hannover Region Clinic to the NDR Lower Saxony. However, the medical director of the clinic in Lüneburg, Torsten Kucharzik, notes: Patients in the emergency room in particular would have to be prepared for longer waiting times.
There is a strike in these hospitals in Lower Saxony
- Aller-Weser Clinic, hospitals Achim and Verden
- general Hospital Celle
- Ammerland Clinic, Westerstede
- AWO Psychiatric Center Koenigslutter
- Elbe clinics, hospitals Buxtehude and Stade
- Heidekreis Clinic, hospitals Soltau and Walsrode
- Karl Jasper Clinic, Bad Zwischenahn
- Hannover Region Clinic: Langenhagen geriatrics, Agnes Karl Laatzen clinics, Großburgwedel, Lehrte, Neustadt am Rübenberge, Nordstadt, Robert Koch Gehrden, Siloah, Langenhagen and Wunstorf psychiatric clinics
- district hospital Wittmund
- Psychiatric Clinic Lueneburg
- City Hospital Brunswick
- City Hospital Wolfenbuettel
- Ubbo Emmius Clinics Aurich and north
The next hearing is scheduled for May 22nd. The wages of around 60,000 doctors throughout Germany are negotiated.
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