Hundreds of employees at the six university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia have again gone on strike for better working conditions because of the high burden in the healthcare system.

According to union information, more than 550 participants demonstrated in Bonn on Tuesday.

They marched from the entrance to the clinic to Poppelsdorfer Platz, where the final rally took place at noon.

The demonstrators wanted to continue to put pressure on employers to obtain a "collective agreement relief".

In Bonn, not only nursing staff demonstrated, but also, for example, employees in patient transport or logistics.

Demonstrations by university hospital employees also took place in Essen and Münster last week.

Tense situation in the clinics

At the University Hospital in Essen, an average of around 250 employees took part in the strike every day, the hospital announced.

There would also be illnesses and quarantines due to Covid-19.

Almost two thirds of the operating rooms are currently closed.

"From a medical point of view, the situation is tense because we need significantly more surgical resources to deal with all emergencies and urgent operations in a timely manner," it said.

Many interventions could not be postponed at will.

At the moment it is still completely unclear when the clinic can return to regular operations.

The Cologne University Hospital has also warned patients of further restrictions due to the university hospital strike in North Rhine-Westphalia, which has been extended until May 26th.

The effects are still great, the university hospital announced last Tuesday.

The clinic has drastically reduced the surgical program, and there are still significant delays in scheduled and outpatient treatments.

Negotiations so far unsatisfactory

In the wage conflict that has been going on for weeks, the Verdi services union had again called on workers to go on strike.

After nothing had moved for a long time, a first round of negotiations between Verdi and the management boards of the six university hospitals in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen and Münster took place on May 20th.

But there is still a lot of jitter between the parties.

"As far as we're concerned, everything should go faster," said Verdi Secretary Arno Appelhoff of the German Press Agency in Bonn.

Further days of negotiations were planned for (today's) Tuesday and Wednesday (May 25) and next Tuesday (May 31).

Verdi has invited to a press conference in the strike tent at Essen University Hospital for tomorrow (11:00 a.m.) to provide information on the status of the negotiations.

The employees of the six university clinics in North Rhine-Westphalia have been on strike for 21 days for a collective agreement relief.

They demand binding personnel assessments for all work areas in the clinics and a load equalization for understaffed shifts.

There is a lot of understanding for the goal on the employer side.

However, there is still a particular lack of nursing staff on the market.