Emergencies will be treated, but there will be significant restrictions in everyday hospital life: Verdi has called its members to a warning strike on Friday, 16 August 2024, as part of the dispute over a "tariff relief" for MHH employees.
The trade union Verdi has called a warning strike at Hannover Medical School (MHH) for this Friday, 16 August 2024. The background to this is the demand for collective bargaining for a "collective agreement on relief", in which relief is to be regulated through better staffing ratios in nursing, but also for MHH employees in other therapeutic professions and trainees, for example - in addition to the existing collective agreement of the federal states.
Emergency patients will be able to receive adequate treatment on Friday. There are likely to be significant restrictions in everyday hospital life. This applies in particular to planned operations, planned inpatient admissions and outpatient treatments. Specifically, this means that patients who have an appointment for an operation, an inpatient admission or an outpatient appointment that is being rescheduled on this Friday will be informed personally of any postponement. Patients whose treatment appointments are not being changed can and should keep them. However, they must expect waiting times and possibly further postponements.
In May, Verdi called on the state of Lower Saxony to enter into negotiations for a collective agreement to reduce the workload for MHH employees. The union linked the demand to a 100-day ultimatum that expires on Thursday, 15 August 2024. As a state-run organisation, MHH is unable to make its own collective bargaining arrangements. As the state is also unable to reach a collective agreement for the MHH without giving up its membership of the Tarifgemeinschaft deutscher Länder (TdL), the MHH Executive Board has instead offered an agreement on relief measures with a management of consequences. This offer was rejected.
"The call to strike is incomprehensible in light of the recent offer of an agreement on relief measures," says MHH President Professor Michael Manns. Together with the state, the MHH Presidential Board is continuing to explore possible solutions and does not want to let the talks with the Staff Council and Verdi come to an end.
Text: Inka Burow