Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik is planning to attract 300 Ukrainian doctors to work in Slovakia. The doctors concerned are mainly surgeons, traumatologists, anaesthetists and gynecologists, whose skills were most sorely missed at Slovak hospitals in late November and early December when more than 2,000 doctors submitted resignations en masse in an attempt to force the ministry to increase their salaries and comply with their demands, the Hospodárske Noviny daily reported on December 23.
"[The Ukrainians] are university-educated doctors who will be able to bolster their qualifications via further education and practice in Slovak hospitals," said Health Ministry spokeswoman Katarína Zollerová as quoted by the daily.
Meanwhile, details of the financing and estimated costs of this project are still unknown.
"The funding of the education project will be discussed with the entities concerned soon," wrote Uhliarik in a fax message sent to the Slovak Medical University, which is supposed to carry out the education project. According to Hospodárske Noviny's calculations, the project may cost €1.5 million.
Source: TASR, Hospodárske Noviny
