BRATISLAVA, March 18, (WEBNOVINY) – Slovak healthcare workers have already lost their patience. They are preparing for strike alert after a meeting with Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik on Friday. “Even today, the Health Minister was not able to satisfy us, I presume that as of April 1, strike alert will be announced in all hospitals, where the health insurance companies offer lower payments in contracts, on rise in the inputs cost,” said the unions’ head Anton Szalay.
The specific form of the strike alert should be made public on Monday. According to Szalay, everyone will participate. “It will be a joint pressure,” he said. One of the forms could be information on strike alert on the doors of doctors’ offices. The unions also agreed upon organizing a protest in front of the Health Ministry on April 1. Szalay did not want to disclose any details regarding a potential strike, he, however, did not rule it out.
Hospitals suggested 2 or 3 euro per day of hospitalization, which could help cover patients’s accommodation and food. This proposal supposedly met positive reactions at the meeting, whereas fees for visiting a doctor were rejected. Minister Uhliarik believes that he managed to persuade the partners and the strike alert threat was warded off. According to the minister threats were not on the agenda of the meeting. „I am a man of dialogue, and I told everybody who was sitting there that we have to search for solutions together, not through a conflict, not through the situation becoming acute. Solutions for problems, that have been mounting for 20 years and which can not be solved within two months,” said Uhliarik.
According to the health workers, it is necessary that new resources are found for financing the healthcare. Szalay said this could be via opening the state budget or through a loan that the Health Ministry could take. Health workers also demand stopping the transformation of hospitals, stabilizing the number of employees and increasing the payments for policy holders of the state by 5.5 percent of the tax base in 2012. They want their demands fulfilled by April 1.
SITA