Basel-Landschaft voters decide on admission ban for doctors
Published: Thursday, Aug 15th 2024, 09:50
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On 22 September, voters in the canton of Basel-Landschaft will decide on the legal basis for a freeze on the admission of doctors. The partial revision of the cantonal healthcare law allows the government to impose an immediate freeze in certain specialist areas and set maximum numbers.
If the supply situation makes it necessary, it may deviate from the maximum numbers in individual cases in a specialist area or region.
On this basis, the government wants to slow down an increase in specialist areas that are already being supplied in line with demand. It anticipates savings of CHF 7.7 million per year. This is a federal requirement: since July 2023, the cantons have been obliged to limit the number of doctors in specialties that provide services at the expense of compulsory health insurance.
The cantonal parliament approved this revision of the law in April. However, as a four-fifths majority was not achieved in parliament, the bill will be put to the ballot box. The FDP and individual votes from the SVP were against it.
FDP and medical associations are against it
The "no" committee, consisting of medical associations and FDP members, fears a lack of medical care in view of the increasing demand for medical services. According to the opponents' communiqué, it is already difficult to find new recruits in some areas of medicine. Furthermore, it would be "negligent" to implement a volume restriction at the present time without knowing what the supply will look like in the future.
Health Director Thomi Jourdan (EVP), on the other hand, stated to the District Council in March that basic care would not be jeopardized by this licensing control, as general practitioners or child and adolescent psychiatry, for example, would not be affected. It was about disciplines that went beyond this.
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