It's 2024.
At the beginning of each year we are full of hope.
Just like at the beginning of 2023, medical staff survived the last wave of the epidemic and began to look forward to new hopes, hoping for a smoother job and a better life.
Although 2023 is not too medical-friendly.
But as Lao Hu (Hu Xijin) said, 2023 is stronger than 2022, yearning is not extravagant, and 2024 is better than 2023.
Medical staff also hope that 2024 will be stronger than 2023, even if only a little stronger.
Will 2024 be stronger than 2023?
What kind of mindset should medical staff look forward to the new year?
I think it is necessary to hold on to hope and face reality.
Let's start with two national-level policies:
1. On December 8, 2023, the National Health Commission issued the "Work Plan for the Inspection of Large Hospitals (2023-2026)", and jointly issued a notice on the issuance of the "Measures for the Administration of Hospital Inspection (Trial)". According to the plan, it was decided to carry out the inspection of a new ** hospital.
The plan points out that focusing on the hot issues of the industry, it will focus on the centralized rectification of corruption in the pharmaceutical field, the nine guidelines for the honest practice of medical institution staff, and the implementation of the national action plan for the integrity of medical institutions and their staff from 2021 to 2024.
The scope of hospital inspections is public hospitals (including traditional Chinese medicine hospitals) of the second level (refer to the second level management) and above, including primary medical and health institutions (mainly township health centers, neighborhood health centers, and community health service centers) and social hospitals. The main focus is 1Party building in public hospitals, 2Industry style construction, 3operation management and other three aspects of work.
This round of hospital inspections is divided into three stages: comprehensive self-inspection, on-site inspection, and supervision and rectification, which will last until the end of October 2026, spanning nearly three years. In terms of specific schedules, the inspection time of ** general hospitals shall not be less than 7 days in principle, and ** specialized hospitals, maternal and child health hospitals and secondary hospitals shall not be less than 5 days in principle.
2. On December 25, 2023, the Ministry of Finance, the National Health Commission, the National Health Insurance Administration, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening the Construction of Internal Control in Public Hospitals".
The Guiding Opinions include a number of major tasks and measures, such as continuously optimizing the internal control environment of public hospitals, effectively strengthening the risk assessment of public hospitals, focusing on improving internal control measures in key businesses and high-risk areas of public hospitals, and comprehensively improving the informatization level of internal control of public hospitals.
Among them, it is clearly required to strengthen asset management, strictly prohibit borrowing to purchase large-scale medical equipment, standardize the leasing and disposal of state-owned assets, and strictly control foreign investment. Strengthen the management of capital construction projects, strictly prohibit public hospitals from borrowing for construction and over-standard decoration, and standardize the management of the whole process of capital construction projects. Strengthen the construction and management of multi-hospital districts, strictly prohibit the construction of hospitals without approval, and resolutely put an end to disorderly expansion.
On December 26, 2023, Hao Xiaoning, a researcher at the Health Development Research Center of the National Health Commission, said in an interview with reporters: At present, more than half of the hospitals have varying degrees of debt problems, and there are many reasons for the debt, and the disorderly and blind expansion of public hospitals is one of the main reasons for the high debt pressure of public hospitals. It is increasingly urgent to comprehensively promote high-quality development, and hospital operations must accelerate the pace of reform to achieve "cost reduction and efficiency increase".
The main reason for these two policies is that medical personnel should hold on to hope.
The inspection of large hospitals has opened a new journey of medical anti-corruption, and while solving anti-corruption, it is also to solve various historical problems in the medical field, so as to make the hospital develop healthier, and then realize the fairness and justice, payment and treatment that medical staff care about.
We don't know the outcome, but we can be hopeful.
The state positions "the disorderly and blind expansion of public hospitals" as "one of the main reasons for the high debt pressure of public hospitals", and the purpose of the policy is to change the status quo that "more than half of the current hospitals have different degrees of debt problems".
Hospitals are less in debt, and the income of medical staff is relatively more secure.
As for whether the result is that the hospital is running better, as for whether the money saved by the hospital not borrowing to buy large equipment and not blindly expanding will be distributed to medical staff, or that sentence, we don't know, but we can have hope.
With hope out of the way, I think medical staff also have to face reality.
What is the reality?
The reality is that 2024 may be tougher for medical staff than 2023.
The start of the three-year inspection of large hospitals in 2024 may make the people think that the medical industry is "too beautiful" and "too profitable", focusing on those medical practitioners with high salaries at the head, which may make the people selectively ignore the vast majority of medical staff who are conscientious and dedicated to the front line with meager salaries, and the people may be even more blind to the fact that public hospitals will close down and the salaries of medical staff will fall again and again.
Medical staff pay is likely to continue to decrease in 2024.
Insufficient financial investment, tightened medical insurance policies, reduced income, and may not be able to maintain the current salary level of medical staff by reducing costs and expenditures, isn't it said that no matter how big the difficulty is divided by 1.4 billion, it will become insignificant, and the medical dilemma may or has been or will continue to be spread on more than 14 million medical personnel.
Health care workers need to be prepared to continue to reduce their salaries.
In 2024, perhaps more people choose to lie down, or more people choose to leave, and for those medical staff who stick to the medical industry and insist on dedication and dedication to their posts, my suggestion is to start thinking about a side hustle.
Really, since the policy allows, there is no shame in engaging in a side hustle.
Even if you don't believe that the side hustle of medical staff is just needed, even if you don't believe that engaging in side hustle is the core competitiveness of doctors now, don't wait until the cost performance of medical services is lower than that of factory screwing, it will really be too late at that time, especially young medical staff.
Engaging in a side hustle can strengthen your financial foundation.
With an economic foundation, you can not forget your original intention and better serve patients wholeheartedly.
Finally, may my hopes come true, and may my worries be superfluous.
May 2024 be better than 2023!