Slovak doctors are determined to show they mean business with their mass resignation campaign, which has already been joined by over 3,800 doctors from all over the country.
They are being mobilised by the doctors’ trade union organisation LOZ and are protesting against various steps of the Ministry of Health that they feel will have a negative impact on the health service. LOZ is starting to collect the resignations this week, something that health minister Ivan Uhliarik said he didn’t believe would happen.
The trade union LOZ has set out a list of the top ten problems in the health service, with one of the main gripes being the planned transformation of state-run hospitals into joint stock companies, as doctors fear privatisation in future. They also want the government to address the bad use of money in hospitals, the general lack of funding, and the low level of health insurance contributions that the state pays for its insured, i.e. the unemployed etc.
The doctors are not only demanding that the whole system of financing be revised, but are calling also for higher salaries. Head of LOZ, Marian Kollar, told the press yesterday that he is confident the doctors will put their threat into practice. LOZ is collecting the resignations and will hand them in collectively probably in October, so still some time to look for a cure.
And about time too! One the many underpaid and undervalued jobs in Slovakia. My only concern is whether they actually go through with it when it really matters. Where is the Slovak spirit nowadays!?