BRATISLAVA, July 24, (WEBNOVINY) — The two-and-a-half hour protest gathering of about three hundred nurses and midwives in front of the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava ended. Participants from all over Slovakia will meet next in front of the Constitutional Court in Kosice. Before the end of the gathering, Chairman of the Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives Viliam Zaborsky informed the protesters about the outcome of a meeting of the Parliamentary Health Committee. “The committee heard me out and adopted a resolution. Its message says that the committee will ask the speaker of parliament for cooperation with proceedings of the Constitutional Court,” Zaborsky said, adding that the parliamentary committee further said in the statement that it supports justified wage requirements of health care employees.
Zaborsky further said that they emphasize that health care professionals have to be appropriately remunerated, but the committee’s resolution does not point out nurses. “No matter how it turns out today, this is only the beginning, we are just getting started. And we have to show that we will not give in until our entitlements are fulfilled,” Zaborsky added.
During the protest gathering, President of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives Maria Levyova was at a meeting with Health Minister Zuzana Zvolenska, Speaker of Parliament Pavol Paska and Chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee Richard Rasi. “The subject of the meeting was not a solution to all our problems. We asked the speaker of parliament for permission to be involved when the law on minimum wage entitlements is returned to Parliament to act as expert consultants,” Levyova said.
Nurses also wanted to know if there is a crisis scenario if the Constitutional Court takes long to issue a ruling on the contested law on their minimum wage entitlements. The nurses do not trust guarantees of their employers that they will keep their wages at increased levels. “We had a law and we want it back and we will insist on it,” Levyova said. According to her, nurses will ask the Constitutional Court to decide quickly and justly. “We are yet to meet in front of the Constitutional Court,” she said.
SITA