BRATISLAVA, November 24, (WEBNOVINY) – Medical trade unions consider the 300-euro average pay rise proposed by the Health Ministry low. As for their additional three requirements, an accord has been struck at the marathon meeting of representatives of protesting doctors with the prime minister and the health minister on Wednesday. After the talks, more than 2,000 doctors remain serious about their notices they tendered as of early October. “We have found accord in most, I dare say, factually in all requirements apart from salaries,” Prime Minister Iveta Radicova announced after the meeting.
Trade unions want more than the proposed pay rise. Radicova added that the representatives of trade unions were not authorized to accept the Cabinet’s offer but want to debate it on Thursday. “We have agreed that they debate this proposal in their organizations and I suggested that the question of potential agreement be resolved Friday,” Radicova said, adding that the Cabinet wants to settle the issue. Trade unionists, too, showed willingness to resolve the dispute. “It is in our interest that doctors stay in hospitals after December 1… Nothing else apart from an agreement is possible and we will seek it,” head of the Medical Trade Unions Association Marian Kollar stated.
The prime minister and the health minister reiterated that the state cannot afford to increase the salaries of doctors by more than 300 euros. The Cabinet allocated EUR 34 million for this purpose. “Any additional rise would be irresponsible populism, this Cabinet really cannot afford it,” Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik noted. Kollar countered that wages of doctors were catastrophic and questioned the adequacy of the offered increase. Radicova stressed that all wages in public sector were low and the Cabinet was trying to deal with them gradually.
On Wednesday, President Ivan Gasparovic has issued an ultimatum to the protesting hospital doctors. Either they come to terms with Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik by Saturday or he will ask the Cabinet to declare a state of emergency. “The doctors will then have to come to work,” the president announced after meeting with medical trade unionists, the minister and representatives of hospitals. He believes this will not happen and doctors and the minister will come to an agreement. He promised trade unionists that a bill on cancellation of hospitals transformation will be submitted while increase in salaries could be at the same time anchored in legislation.
According to the Medical Trade Unions Association, as of the end of September of this year 2,411 doctors filed their resignation notices in 34 hospitals across Slovakia. Subsequently about 400 of them withdrew their notices. Altogether 7,500 doctors work at patients’ beds in Slovakia. The Medical Trade Unions Association has four demands on the government: to observe the Labor Code, change the system of health care funding, stop transformation of hospitals to joint-stock companies, and increase wages of health care employees.
SITA