Reform measures in the health care sector: Prohibition of gratuities, secondment and conflicts of interest versus salary increases

Abstract

The healthcare reform, which was introduced to improve the living conditions of healthcare workers, especially doctors, and to reduce gratuities was a serious step. However, the price of this was that the employees, who previously worked within the framework of civil servant relationship or employment relationship had to undertake the transition to the new health service legal relationship, which, comes with unexpected tightenings (e.g. rules on conflict of interests), unilateral employer rights (e.g. secondment), and prohibitions (e.g. acceptance of gratuity). The author deals with these questions in more detail in this study.