A provision includes penalties for private doctors who refuse to provide services to the NHS. Specifically , Article 65 of the Mental Health Bill provides that doctors contracted with NHS will fill vacancies in hospitals if requested to do so or their contract will be terminated. There are also plans to stop the right to electronic prescribing for private doctors who refuse to do on-call work in the NHS, as requested on a case-by-case basis by the Health Ministry.

“Private doctors employed in any employment relationship in health units contracted with the National Health Service Providers (NHS) or who are themselves contracted with the NHS, undertake through the above contracts to provide health services to meet needs that may endanger public health, if requested and only for the time absolutely necessary.

The provision of these services shall be part-time, if the notices to fill the vacancies have proved fruitless, the expression of interest by private doctors to fill the vacancies has been fruitless and after a prior recommendation of the relevant medical association has been requested, which must be submitted to the competent Ministry of Health within an exclusive period of three working days.

This possibility may be extended to private doctors who have joined the Electronic Prescription System of the joint stock company called “Electronic Governance of Social Security” (E.D.I.K.A. S.A.) and prescribe medicines and examinations reimbursed by the National Health Insurance Fund, only if the doctors under contract with the Hellenic Health Insurance Fund are not sufficient to cover the above shortages’, the provision states.

It also adds :

“If the private providers or private physicians contracted with the H.P.H.Y. refuse to provide services, their contract with the H.P.H.Y. shall be terminated. In addition, private doctors who refuse to provide services in application of the above paragraphs, whether they are contracted with the H.O.P.Y.Y. or not, shall be excluded from access to the Electronic Prescription System (EPS) of the joint stock company named “Electronic Governance of Social Security” (H.D.I.K.A. S.A.)”.

The Minister of Health in an interview yesterday said, addressing doctors, that their help will be for a few months until the new measures for new appointments pay off and attract doctors to work in the NHS.

Specifically, generous financial incentives are being given for barren areas and specialties of little interest. More specifically, Article 62 of the Mental Health Bill closes a pending issue in order to issue a Joint Ministerial Decision (JMD) that will broaden the criteria for the designation of arid areas, while increasing the salaries of doctors staffing local NHS structures.

The article amends an earlier provision to allow an increase of 300 euros in arid regions A and 200 euros in arid regions B per month in the amount granted to doctors serving in hospitals in these regions. The Ministry of Health’s proposal is that these amounts should be doubled for six ‘lean’ medical specialities (internal medicine, anaesthesiology, nephrology, pathological anatomical radiology, medical biology and laboratory medicine). The bill is expected to be passed this week and the Joint Ministerial Decision (JMD) published in the Government Gazette by August 15.