The NBS is recruiting medical staff with impressive salaries. Nurses are promised a salary of EUR 1,799, assistant doctors EUR 1,849, and doctors EUR 1,993 after tax. This job offer is a cause for concern among civilian medical establishments, where there is already a shortage of medical professionals. Ervīns Keišs, Chairman of the Board of the Jēkabpils Regional Hospital, is also concerned, as the vacancies advertised by the NBS are also available in Jēkabpils.
"As far as remuneration is concerned, I would like to emphasize more the remuneration of doctors, because I believe that this remuneration is absolutely competitive in our medical institution as well. It is the middle staff - the qualified middle staff, that is the assistant doctors and nurses - where the remuneration offered by the armed forces is far above our actual and theoretical possibilities, that is more worrying.
"On the other hand, we certainly have a positive view of the activities of the National Armed Forces, as comprehensive national defence is now a well-known priority," Keišs said.
The Chairman of the Board of Aizkraukle Hospital, Rinalds Muciņš, is also concerned about the possible outflow of staff to the national defense sector:
"The availability of healthcare workforce is a problem that is growing year by year, and it is clear that any additional employer poses certain risks. This is especially true for nurses, whose shortage we feel very acutely. This creates some tension because there is a shortage of labor."
The NBS explains that there is no reason for concern as medical professionals working in the military are allowed to combine posts while continuing to work in civilian medical institutions, and many are already doing so.
"The officers in the armed forces are given this possibility, it is logical and justified,[..] because we will not have so many of these accidents, we will not have so many clinical cases with the corresponding morbidity. Logically, it is better to go and work in a hospital to be in circulation," explains Lieutenant-Colonel Normunds Vaivads, Chief Medical Officer of the Medical Service of the NBS Joint Staff.
The specifics of the job must also be taken into account.
Some of the current medical vacancies are specialist posts for professional soldiers, which means that the employee will have to become a soldier.
"He will have to enlist, so he has to follow a military course, which for specialist soldiers is a specialist instructor or specialist officer respectively. After passing the course, they become soldiers, get rank and their pay is done as it is for soldiers," said Vaivads.
There are also age limits for candidates. Those applying for the posts of doctors have to be under 43 years of age, while those applying for assistant doctors and nurses have to be under 45 years of age. Military doctors must also be prepared to provide medical care to the unit, both on a day-to-day basis and during sensitive and high-risk activities.
It should be noted that the range of medical specialists required by the NBS is very wide - traumatologists-orthopaedists, neurologists, surgeons, emergency medicine doctors, otorhinolaryngologists, cardiologists and other health care specialties are needed.
