BRATISLAVA, December 5, (WEBNOVINY) — Although protesting hospital doctors should have been back at work from Monday, some doctors from the Medical Trade Unions Associations have a problem with drafts of new employment contracts they are offered by directors of hospitals. According to Vice-Chairman for the Medical Trade Unions Association (LOZ) Jan Sykora, some of them are not in line with the memorandum sealed by the government and the trade unions. In his opinion the problem is in the fact that the Health Ministry has not elaborated a sample contract but every health care provider prepared an own one. But some have not prepared the contracts as they were supposed to.
“We expected that there would be a unified contract and that it will be pre-negotiated,” Sykora told SITA news agency. Therefore, the trade unionists decided to prepare a universal work contract. They should do so on Monday. Sykora thinks that it is not a problem that new contracts will be signed only on Tuesday morning according to the sample agreement. Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik did not know that the trade unionists had been working on a new contract. “This is new information for me,” he told a press conference in the Bratislava University Hospital.
Problems with contracts may be the reason why the majority of doctors have not signed new contracts after their jobs terminated last week. For example, not a single doctor has done so in the Bratislava University Hospital though contracts signed by the director have been prepared since the morning. Trade unionists should be taking them over at the moment. “I believe that doctors will add their signatures today and that all doctors will return to their patients as soon as possible, Uhliarik said in the largest hospital in Slovakia. At the same time he drew attention to the fact that the state of emergency continues and therefore appeals to doctors to observe occupational discipline.
Director of the University Hospital in Bratislava Miroslav Bucha added that 330 doctors have not come to work on Monday. He also informed that the new contract to be signed by doctors was pre-discussed with representatives of the trade unions while they agreed with it. The hospital is able to provide emergency health care but planned interventions have to be postponed.
The minister also informed at the press conference that all hospitals in the state of emergency provide emergency health care while facilities in Kosice, Poprad, Trencin, Martin, Ruzomberok, Skalica and Piestany also offer planned care.
The Cabinet and LOZ agreed on fulfillment of the unions’ requirements on December 3. Protesting doctors managed to push forward all of their requirements: a more thorough observation of the Labor Code, changes to payments from the side of health insurance companies, canceling transformation of hospitals and pay rises.
SITA