Strike causing Iceland brain-drain?

Ongoing strike action and pay disputes in Iceland is leading a number of healthcare specialists either to resign or move abroad.

Some 30% of all radiologists at the National University Hospital of Iceland (‘Landspítali’) have resigned in the past few days, according to the hospital’s Director of Research, Óskar Reykdalsson.

Radiologists invaluable for research work

“Staff are tired from the extra workload resulting from the radiologists’ strike,” explains Reykdalsson. The strike is about to enter its third month and those radiologists exempt from industrial action have come under immense workload pressure.

Reykdalsson candidly admits that the Department’s work cannot continue twenty radiologists down. “I hope that this dispute will soon be resolved and that the radiologists will find the deal attractive. These people are invaluable to us. We would rather need twenty more than twenty fewer,” he states.

Midwives looking into relocating

A similar danger is faced by the hospital as regards its midwives, who have also been involved in strike action since early April.

Last week, 22 midwives (17% of all midwives at Landspítali) applied to the Directorate of Health for certification of their right to apply for work in other Nordic countries. Two have already been recruited in Sweden.

“Few want to move from Iceland,” says Áslaug Valsdóttir, Head of the Icelandic Association of Midwives. “But staff are disappointed with their workplace, depressed at not receiving a full wage for their work in recent months, and fed up with the long-term pressure.”