Health care strike to begin on Monday, Prime Minister commented

“The Zajedno Trade Union has decided to go on strike for health workers on Monday, November 11,” announced the vice-president of the trade union Sanda Alić on Friday, and the demands are an increase in the salary base by at least 20 percent and a change in the regulation on coefficients.

“Most institutions in Croatia are going on strike. As we announced in the previous two weeks, only emergency cases will be treated, that is, all diagnostic, laboratory and radiological processing will not be performed,” said Sanda Alić at a press conference in front of the Zagreb Clinical Hospital Center.

She pointed out that since February, the Ministry of Health has not responded to their letters about illogicalities in the regulation on coefficients for individual positions.

“Unfortunately, a strike is the only way for the public to find out who we are, what we are and how little we are paid for our work and all responsibility for people's health and life,” she said.

She expects that four thousand members of that union will respond to the strike, as well as a large number of members of other unions. She also noted that the health and lives of patients will not be endangered at any time during the strike.

In addition to changing the regulation on coefficients, the Zajedno Trade Union also requests an increase in the salary base by at least 20 percent.

“We won't go below that. Our base is now 947 euros gross. We have been warning about this for years, but the relevant Ministry did not listen because it always played on our card of empathy and humanity,” said Alić.

Vladimir Markuš, the head of the health department in the Zajedno Union, said that he was sorry that they were announcing a strike.

“We could have avoided that strike. We have been asking for a conversation since February, but no one wanted to talk to us. Medical transport includes the sick and the immobile; there is a huge number of transports that we carry out. I feel sorry for the people who will need our help that they will be deprived of transportation, but we had no choice. We had to take union action to realize our material rights,” he said.

“The salary increase for health workers is around 30 to 50 euros net salary. With this new regulation, we fell from the fourth payroll tier to the third. We fell a step lower, he pointed out indignantly.

The strike could have been avoided, however, for nine months; no one from the Ministry of Health came forward to meet.

“Until the coefficients came into effect, we warned that certain working conditions were not well evaluated. That is why certain activities were deprived and we did not get what we had before,” said Markuš.

“Our profession has been degraded for years, a lot of things have been abolished and we were humiliated by these coefficients that were assigned to us. We are asking for the inclusion of our allowance for radiation in the existing coefficient,” pointed out Andrijana Lukačević, radiological technologist.

When asked what will happen to people who have been waiting for an examination for a long time, she said that she was sorry, but that they could see no other way out.

“The waiting lists are large in themselves. People wait for radiological examinations for three months, I feel very sorry for oncology patients, I feel sorry for anyone who waits for a very long time, but we see no other way out. We were at the Ministry, an error was recognized for our profession, but they turned a deaf ear,” she pointed out.

Prime Minister Plenković commented on the announced strike from Budapest.

“The coefficient is not subject to negotiation between us and the union. The coefficients are adopted by government decrees, and that is why, in our opinion, it should have been discussed through a special committee that looks at all the coefficients. Is everything is ideally evaluated with the coefficients, I take with reservation. Is this situation today a reason for a strike? It is the responsibility of the trade union that organizes it. Other health unions, as far as I know, did not support that strike”, said Andrej Plenković, Prime Minister.

Source: HRT