The ambulances in Liberecka are fighting for every doctor. They are towed away by the hospital

The state reached an agreement with unions, hospitals and insurers to increase doctors’ salaries starting in late 2023, but forgot about nursing staff.

“We have excellent full-time doctors and external doctors. By combining contract workers and tribal doctors, we have ten RVs and ten doctors on duty around the clock, so there is no impact on helping people. But this is thanks to external collaborators,” said Michael Georgiev, spokesman and rescuer of ZZS LK LK.

It is not easy to find tribal doctors who are 100% committed to rescue work. According to him, the established system is so unfavorable that it often discourages future colleagues from the beginning. It is not enough to just study medicine. If they want to work on an ambulance, they must complete courses such as emergency medicine to meet the standards, and preparation takes years.

“During training, their interest in joining us disappears. They get better financial offers, they have possibilities for career development, they get used to the team somewhere else and then they stop coming,” Georgiev explained.

The emergency services are not funded the same way as, say, university hospitals. It’s up to the founder. The district has currently given the rescue department six million dollars in compensation. He will use the money to increase doctors’ salaries. But this is not a long-term solution.

The same is true for a university-educated specialist paramedic who, after completing his studies, can enter emergency surgery only after working in a hospital for a year.

According to health professionals across the country, this is discriminatory because it is the only field where passing the national exam is not enough to practice, as is the case with other universities. As a result, many trained paramedics simply do not enter the field. Meanwhile, students practice throughout their studies.

“For me it would have been better to go directly to the ambulance and be with someone who would guide and teach me for half a year,” said Nela Sováková, a nursing student at the Technical University of Liberec, who now does internship in an ambulance.

At the same time, it worked this way a few years ago. For example, Liberec paramedic Lucie Boková experienced this, when she joined nineteen years ago.

“I was able to join the ambulance service right after I studied at the Higher Vocational School in the field of specialized nursing care. They watched me during training. I did not need to do any internship after school, as it is now. After joining I also attended the training service, and when I was ready I had to pass the exam, just like today. But the situation for applicants today is much more complicated,” Bokova explained.

Future nursing staff also have a hard time finding places to intern every year because hospitals don’t want to invest in them when they know they will leave again, or, on the contrary, they try to lure them away with better wages and benefits.