The Italian Doctors Union (Smi) has decided to sign the National Collective Agreement on general medicine for the three-year period 2019-2021.
However, the union's position remains very critical: "we sign for the sole purpose of not jeopardizing our participation in institutional discussions and therefore being able to better represent the requests of our members", it writes in a note.
There are several gaps in the new agreement, according to the SMI, which reports that "there is an inadequacy in the compensation provided in relation to the contribution, also in terms of human lives, of general medicine during the pandemic".
Furthermore, "there is no valorisation of the intellectual activity carried out by doctors, nor for the chapters concerning particularly demanding services, for those relating to home visits (ADI and ADP visits) and for the methods of organizing work. nothing is done about the bureaucratic burden", continues the union.
The agreement also does not provide for "part-time or the valorisation of overtime work as well as a maximum limit to the same".
According to the SMI, without these options, "there will be a further flight of young doctors from general practice, especially young colleagues, who now represent 60% of the professionals working in the area".
There are also critical issues for doctors in training who have taken on temporary general medicine roles, who may find themselves having to carry out "48 or more hours of work per week", adds the union which, however, applauds the openings "regarding pregnancy, recognition of illness and injury for the purposes of creating rankings and telemedicine in situations of particular hardship and for pregnant and postpartum women and with children up to 3 years old".
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