WONCA Europe Newsletter November 2020 Edition

Published on 8 December 2020.

WONCA Europe Newsletter November 2020

Dear WONCA Europe members, chairmans and presidents of our member organisations, networks and special interest groups, dear family doctors all around WONCA Europe region.

In next week, we will meet together at the Berlin conference. Due to the circumstances, it will be a virtual meeting but we hope to take this threat as a new opportunity. The reduced fees, the costs saved by joining a conference from home without traveling, and the option to participants to watch other parallel sessions at a later time may be a new way of working and a way to attract participants from hard-to-reach areas. We look forward to seeing you.

Although being able to meet face-to-face is one of the pleasures of WONCA, this pleasure will once more be postponed. It had been decided that the 2021 WONCA conference in Amsterdam is going to be virtual. Let's hope that it will gain many attendees and that in 2022 we will finally be able to meet again in person.

Yours,

On behalf of WONCA Europe Executive Board
Sonia Tsukagoshi, VdGM, Member at large
Shlomo Vinker, President Elect of WONCA Europe
WONCA Europe Newsletter Editors

COVID-19, as a Work or Employment Injury in PHC Across all Europe

Dear Members, Dear Colleagues

ith the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, the Family Doctors (FDs/GPs) health care workers have been under an enormously increasing risk in Europe.  

Many FDs/GPs had and still have the disease. The call for further need for encouragement and motivation succeeded to add extra payments for the PC health workers. The European Public Service Union (EPSU) web-site published the round-up of COVID-19 bonuses in July 2020. Depending on this already 4 months old information Portuguese, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Wale/UK, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Sweden were providing somehow an additional payment in a non-standard way and to some PHC workers.  None of those so called bonuses were enough when thinking of the actual risk not only physicians are facing but also populations as the workforce has been losing many health workers. The pandemic progressed and a second wave occurred terribly hitting nowadays, and probably will be stronger.  Our MOs started to talk on occupational work related disease coverage and pointed out the social security funds or additional supportive fund coverage...

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Upcoming Events


92nd EGPRN Meeting
29 April - 2 May 2021 - Halle, Germany


3rd EURACT Educational Conference
23-25 September 2021 - Siedlce, Poland


3rd EURACT Educational Conference
24-25 September 2021 - Budapest, Hungary

 

Featured Network: VdGM

Here in the Vasco da Gama Movement we are a community that learns from and supports each other. We are always willing to adapt to new situations - anything to allow us to continue our good work as an organisation and as family doctors.

Over the last few months, we have risen to the challenges we have been given. From using messaging services to update each other on the COVID pandemic, to updating and modifying organisational policies for online use, holding online sessions to explore and discuss the work of the organisation, organising online meditation and support group sessions..

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WONCA Europe 2021 - Dutch College of General Practitioners Introduction

Dear colleagues,

I would like to introduce myself by means of this email and immediately take the opportunity to inform you about the WONCA Europe Conference  2021 in Amsterdam. My name is Wendy Borneman and as of June 1, 2020, I was appointed as President of the Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG), succeeding Rob Dijkstra.

I work as a general practitioner in a small village in the south of the Netherlands. For the past 4 years I was a board member of the Dutch Association of general practitioners (LHV)...

 Click here to read the rest of the article on our website.

Integrated, person-centred primary health care in Slovenia

by Zalika Klemenc Ketiš

Recently, WHO has published a report entitled “Integrated, person-centred primary health care produces results: case study from Slovenia”. Integrated care can be described as a coherent and coordinated set of services planned, managed and offered to individual service users by a number of organisations and a range of cooperating professionals and informal carers. In Slovenia, integrated care is practiced in family medicine practices through interdisciplinary primary care teams, practising person-centred care.

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Family Practice is seeking submissions for a special issue on "Primary Care Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic".

As of September 2020, COVID-19 has infected 32 million people, resulting in a million deaths worldwide. It is well known that the pandemic has impacted primary care in many ways, such as severe declines in clinical volumes and revenues, interruption in preventive care services, and adverse impact on clinician well-being. Equally important, are numerous potential long-term clinical impacts and distressing ongoing chronic health issues. Primary care training has suffered due to limitations on personal protective equipment, quarantine of health care workers, and a reduced morale amongst practicing physicians...

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Please send materials, such as interesting stories and reflections, to SecretariatEurope@wonca.net for our upcoming editions. We ask you to send the newsletter to all your colleagues and to share it on your website / Facebook / Twitter homepage.