BRATISLAVA, November 9, (WEBNOVINY) — Salaries of nurses and midwives can now be expected to grow as of April 2012, after the Cabinet on Wednesday approved a Health Ministry draft bill on their remuneration. The legislation suggests raising the average salary of nurses and midwives by 23.89 percent on average from the sum paid out during H1 2011. Medical facilities presently employ 32,710 nurses and 1,769 midwives. The bill will also apply to 3,100 nurses at institutions for orphaned children.
The approved pay hike will cost over EUR 77 million next year but the Health Ministry warns that the real impact may reach EUR 150 million as hospitals will have to adjust wages of other employees that carry out similarly difficult and demanding work bearing a comparable share of responsibility under the same or comparable work conditions, reaching the same or comparable performance and outcome. The clause dedicated to the fiscal impacts stipulates that the necessary funds are not covered in the approved draft state budget or in the chapters of the Ministries of Health and Labor. Nonetheless, Finance Ministry State Secretary Vladimir Tvaroska assured after the Cabinet session that the money would be secured.
“We have fulfilled our promise made to nurses,” Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said to the approved draft bill. Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik specified that the bill was shaped in talks with nurses. Some nurses presently earn less than EUR 400. “I would like to thank nurses for the way how they negotiated their legitimate requirement without taking patients hostage but sitting at the negotiating table; this should be an example also for the others,” the minister said, alluding to the protest action of doctors who have tendered notices.
President of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, Maria Levyova, has greeted the blueprint. Then again, the Slovak Trade Union representing Workers in the Health Sector and Social Services has lambasted the paper as non-systemic. Doctors and hospitals dislike it, too. The Association of Hospitals in Slovakia is sharply opposed to the blueprint because it disregards minimum pays of doctors, medical assistants, workers in labs, technicians and other medical staffers.
SITA