Doctors face large amounts of stress on a daily basis. Paperwork alone, takes a third of their time, which is also why they have appealed for exercising the agreed strategy, or else more and more young doctors could decide to look for jobs abroad, the Slovenian doctors claim.

Today, some doctors are addressing their patients by wearing T-shirts with a print saying ‘Family doctors take care of you’.

Even though Slovenia is short of 500 doctors, there are 150 who are unemployed. And despite the fact that several calls for applications for medical specializations have been made for this year there is no interest among young generations. Aside from expected work overload, the young people are drawn away from the applying for the spots also due to being ranked 2 grades lower than other doctors, when first joining the team.

Just yesterday, Switzerland amended the constitution to support more family doctors in rural areas. In Slovenia, for example, only 3 % of the country’s health care funds are used to finance family medicine.

L.P., RSi