Half of doctors working in emergency are seriously thinking about changing jobs. Sixteen percent of them plan to do it within the next six years. Physical and emotional tiredness, as well as the sentiment of having sacrificed their social life, are the main reasons put forward. There is already a severe lack of doctors in this field, the Mediahuis papers wrote on Saturday.
The figures come from an inquiry done by the Belgian association of emergency doctors and Ghent University, which was done in 2015.
“This is particularly worrying”, says the President of the association. “It confirms what we have been worried about for a long time: people are stopping in the middle of the training. There are too many cases of depression and suicide among their colleagues”.
The administrative overload, the lack of recognition for their work and the imbalance between work and private life are the main causes. According to the results of the inquiry, most doctors in emergency do 35% of their shifts at night and 25% at the weekend. In some hospitals, the proportion can be as much as one shift in two during these hours.
(Source: Belga)
