Both young doctors gave President Levits their assessment of fight against COVID-19 from the perspective Riga East University Hospital and Pauls Stradiņš University Hospital and presented their recommendations on vaccination programme and ways of addressing hospital HR needs. ‘I do appreciate your and all your colleague’s tremendous efforts in containing the virus and am thankful for your concern about ways to make it more efficient,’ said Egils Levits.
Mr Šilovs underlined that Latvian Junior Doctors Association has done everything to bring a constructive position to the table. It has always been ready to engage in tackling the spread of COVID-19 more efficiently. Young doctors also shared details of their everyday work and what they think about stopping the virus and vaccination, which has already started. Artūrs Šilovs and Kārlis Rācenis confirmed that clinical hospital workers have received COVID-19 bonuses provided by the government and suggested that other incentives, such as additional leave, health insurance or other kinds of assistance, would enable medical staff recover more quickly.
Mr Šilovs and Mr Rācenis also raised the issue of public awareness on COVID-19 and vaccination, which also includes medical personnel awareness. They mentioned a number of ways to address this issue: introduction of a condensed course on Covid-19 vaccine for all medical workers because of wide-spread stereotypes and disinformation for one. President of Latvia agreed: “We need to clear all misconceptions and disinformation in this regard, our public health depends on that’.
They also proposed to help Latvian healthcare system deal with staff shortages and excessive everyday workload through greater involvement of medical interns and urged to decide on gradual phasing out of medical internship fees as soon as possible. Consistent healthcare investment programme and increase of health sector wages should contribute to a more sustainable national healthcare system for Latvia.
President of Latvia thanked both young physicians for valuable insights into various sides of vaccination programme. He agreed that it is necessary to make sure 2/3 of population have gone through voluntary vaccination as quickly as possible to improve the current situation. ‘Vaccine will help protect others and yourself – we must complete the vaccination programme as soon, and as efficiently, as possible,’ said the President. More stringent restrictions in the coming weeks are needed to remove more people from the path of the virus, added Artūrs Šilovs and Kārlis Rācenis. They also underlined the importance of spreading more information across national Russian-language media because of massive amount of second-hand information from second-hand sources, which creates room for manipulation.
Young doctors also warned about overwhelming demand for planned care once healthcare crisis caused by the pandemic is over as many of these services have been discontinued during the Covid-19 outbreak.