The gulf in wages between different health sector employees is continuing to widen and might end up in Brussels, according to the financial daily Hospodárske Noviny in its April 16 edition. Trade unionists have chosen Brussels as one target of protests they are preparing. "We will go to Brussels to point out that the Slovak government is not solving the problems of the health sector in a way that medical staff and patients would expect it to," said Anton Szalay, chief of the Slovak Health Trade Union Organization, representing 27,000 members.
The issue has arisen principally because the largest health insurer, Všeobecná Zdravotná Poisťovňa, favoured state hospitals when awarding an increase in payments for healthcare. It increased their payments by 40 percent, while small and medium-sized hospitals with private capital partners got only 10 percent more. As a result, they say they cannot meet the wages increases requested by their employees. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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