Hiring of cross-border workers with two jobs at the EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya

Mireia Traserra Call and Olga Reglero Bragulat work, respectively, as Human Resources Director and European Projects Technician at EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya, the first cross-border healthcare centre in Europe located in Puigcerdà (Catalonia, Spain).   

“The mission of the EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya is to offer specialized health assistance, acting as the backbone of a territorial network that incorporates professionals and institutions from both sides of the French and Spanish border”, they explain.  

Currently, all the French workers at the cross-border hospital are hired by the “Centre Hospitalier de Perpignan”, and then seconded to the EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya. But to hire workers who already have a job in France, and thus would be considered cross-border multi-occupational workers, is a complex and long administrative procedure due to the differences in the social security contributions between the two countries. Simplifying the procedure would facilitate the curtailment of cross-border health workers having several work occupations.

EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya requested assistance from b-solutions in order to gain a deeper knowledge of the obstacle and develop strategies to improve cooperation on both sides of the border, which is key for the EGTC’s team

“Cross-border cooperation is so evident and so real at the EGTC-Hospital of Cerdanya, that in addition to dedicating ourselves to our main activity, we have had to develop internally a cross-border unit to manage everything including European and cross-border projects and, an example is the b-solutions project”, Mireia and Olga share.

According to Maria Garayo, b-solutions expert on the case, feasible solutions include to clearly define the scope and modalities of service provision by French professionals, in terms of the place of exercise of the activity, and the legal and social regime implications that this entails. Such a definition in the hospital's management model would allow the hospital to  better know its obligations towards the French employees.

Other practical solutions could be to create an information tool in the form of a guide or manual to support the management of the hospital's human resources or to draft a model employment contract for French health professionals.  

Mirea and Olga are satisfied of the solutions highlighted and, all the more so, with the collaboration with Maria Garayo.

“The case was treated with the utmost professionalism and provided us with solutions and information that we were lacking to solve this obstacle that we encounter more and more often in our organization. Furthermore, our opinions were respected at all times and our initial ideas about managing the project within our resources were taken into account”, they say.

The EGTC will be able to go forward by building on the provided solutions via b-solutions.

“On the one hand, based on the advice of this b-solutions project, we would like to continue with the formalization of internal materials available to workers, which are informative for the workers affected and, at the same time, action protocols for Human Resources technicians.

On the other hand, and no less important, the future vision of the EGTC towards all the issues that generate differences while maintaining equity between workers is to elevate them in order to contribute to a European framework of equity while applying working conditions and social benefits”, they conclude.