Word: belgians
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...nursing staffs and the few physicians on emergency service at the hospitals were drooping with fatigue as the Belgian doctors' strike dragged into its third week. The wards were jammed with patients, many of whom would normally be treated at home, and, though the emergency service had worked fairly smoothly, spokesmen for the strikers now warned that it would not be continued. Because contagious diseases were sometimes bedded next to others in the crowded hospitals, doctors also warned of imminent epidemics. Belgian husbands with pregnant wives were taking them over the border to France, Holland or West Germany...
...provide military transport, supply all equipment right down to little black bags. Since 80% of Belgium's anesthetists are women, and not subject to military service, many operations could not be performed despite the call-up. An army medical officer, one of some 20 flown in from Belgian forces in West Germany to help, declared: "I am ashamed of being a doctor after seeing what is going on here." At week's end, two doctors and a technician were charged with the sabotage of a cable supplying electricity for the X-ray room at a Brussels clinic...
Still undecided were the basic issues. The new law established a schedule of fees that doctors could charge under the Belgian health-insurance system, and restricted them to no more than three afternoons a week to see private patients. The doctors are convinced that this law will lower their incomes and oblige them to practice assembly-line medicine, and they insist that government inspection of their records would violate the secrecy of the doctor-patient relationship. They also fear that the law will lead to uncomfortably accurate auditing of their income-tax returns...
Realizing that their united front was disintegrating, and faced with spreading scarlet fever and other outbreaks among Belgian children, the strike leaders agreed to negotiate. But after 14 hours of wrangling, the talks broke down. The strikers tried an ultimatum; they even threatened to stop emergency hospital service. That was it. The government angrily announced that it would start drafting physicians. Once in uniform, the doctors would work when and where they were told to. Said Premier Theo Lefevre: "We will take all measures necessary to prevent the situation from worsening still more...
...action was apparently taken in retaliation against a government order Sunday conscripting the 3,600 Belgian doctors who hold military reserve commissions. About one third of the reserve doctors have shown up for duty, but a career army doctor said the call-up had not helped the national situation much...