BRATISLAVA, December 27, (WEBNOVINY) — The Medical Trade Unions Association (LOZ) was expected to present solutions to the crisis situation in the health system at a news conference on Sunday. However, representatives of the association just noted that they had been offering solutions to the Slovak Cabinet for months. “Unfortunately, we have not found a co-operative partner on the other side until now,” chief of medical trade unions Marian Kollar remarked. He implied that the memorandum delivered to the government was the respective solution.
Doctors reiterated that they were willing to negotiate and, reportedly, ready for concessions. Nonetheless, they insist on legislative guarantees. “We are in an emergency situation. We have proposed solutions not only at the meeting with the prime minister, we have always proposed solutions and we want to negotiate and we want to attain agreement,” Kollar assured, adding that doctors were “doomed to strike agreement due to patients”. However, it is questionable whether there will be a partner for more talks because the prime minister announced Friday, she would not negotiate with LOZ any more. Kollar says that now the entire responsibility shifted to the government.
At the news conference, trade unionists also tackled the matter of salaries. They argue that if the government has been able to find EUR 28 million as state assistance for a private company, it must find money for salaries of doctors. The Cabinet is offering an average pay rise by EUR 300, while doctors request EUR 707.
Both the Cabinet and the Medical Trade Unions Association (LOZ) have released the blueprints of their memoranda. The two papers differ mainly in the proposed pay rise. The Cabinet offers to first raise salaries of doctors to at least 1.05- to 1.6-fold the average wage in the national economy as of January 2012. The next pay rise is proposed to come as of April 1 of the same year, to at least 1.17- to 1.73-fold the average wage. However, trade unionists want more, demanding 1.25- to 2.5-fold the average wage as of January 2012 and 1.5- to 3-fold the average wage as of January 2013.
Doctors believe that the pay rise should be enshrined in a separate law. The Memorandum unveiled by the prime minister stipulates the commitment to enact the pay increase as of April via an amending proposal to the draft bill governing wages of nurses. The January pay rise is to be secured through an order issued by the Health Minister to state-operated hospitals and a call addressing founders of other hospitals.
On Monday, the Cabinet will submit a permanent solution to the situation in Slovak hospitals that may be left without enough doctors as of December 1, the so-called plan B. Members of the Slovak Cabinet will simultaneously decide whether they declare a state of emergency. The government wants to apply the emergency state to a minimum number of hospitals. “The Cabinet will weigh whether it is necessary to declare the state of emergency and if yes, then at which concrete hospitals,” Prime Minister Iveta Radicova stated following an unscheduled Cabinet session held on Saturday. Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik added that the aim was to avoid afflicting those physicians that decided to stay. Moreover, the state of emergency is expected to last only a few days.
The prime minister assured that medical care would be provided by fully-fledged, qualified specialists on a full scale even after December 1. According to Radicova, the plan B includes merging hospital departments, rationalization and, in some cases, potential closedown of hospitals. Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik said on air of the Slovak Television on Sunday that affected hospitals will operate 24/7 hotlines as of December 1 that will provide information to patients, e.g., whether their doctors work and whether the planned surgical operation was postponed.
SITA