BRATISLAVA, November 25, (WEBNOVINY) – If medical trade unionists do not seal the memorandum, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova will support declaring a state of emergency. “I ask doctors to consider their standpoint, I ask them for this,” she said Friday after a meeting with President Ivan Gasparovic adding that of ten requirements of the Medical Trade Unions Association (LOZ) the government has made significant compromises in nine, including an increase in salaries. “But it is not possible to go above the framework of budgetary opportunities of the Slovak Republic,” she emphasized.
The issue of salaries is the last one that the government has not been able to finish with trade unionists. The prime minister reminded that medical trade unionists declared in 2009 they would not demand a pay rise due to the crisis situation. “The same trade unionists reject the offer of the government for a 30-percent pay rise as insufficient,” she remarked. Gasparovic thinks that LOZ representatives do not present themselves as people who want to achieve acceptable negotiation using compromises. He also drew attention to current opportunities of the Slovak economy. If representatives of doctors do not accept the offer, in his opinion a solution is to declare a state of emergency. “Neither the government nor the president can wait until somebody dies because he/she did not receive treatment. It would be late to order a state of emergency after this,” he stated adding that it is up to the government when and whether it will declare this state.
Radicova says she will sign the memorandum regardless of the stance of trade unionists. According to Radicova, the content of the memorandum is expedited preparation of the evaluation of performance based on diagnoses, observation of the Labor Code, anti-corruption measures, and more ethics in the doctor-patient relation. Part of the document also includes measures so that doctors, who tendered notices and already withdrew them, would not be sanctioned. “The only question, which is still open, is the question of salaries,” she concluded specifying that the government insists on the offered hike by 300 euros.
The last meeting between LOZ people and the prime minister midweek was fruitless as trade unions turned down the Cabinet’s proposal for a EUR 300 pay rise as of next year saying that the offered increase is too low. Trade unionists from individual hospitals met on Thursday with the LOZ leadership. Participants to the meeting say they still reject the Cabinet’s proposals and will not withdraw their notices and are even willing to face the risk that a state of emergency would be announced as President Ivan Gasparovic threatens to demand if an agreement is not achieved. His deadline for reaching an agreement and thus an end to the doctor’s protest is this Saturday. The LOZ leaders however did not want to speak about conclusions from their Thursday meeting. They say they first want to inform the prime minister.
President Gasparovic has issued an ultimatum to the protesting hospital doctors midweek. 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 return 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