After protests by nurses earlier this year, the Slovak government decided to increase their minimum wage rate and enshrine a new term via a legal amendment: minimum wage for a medical worker. It also decided last week to increase their salaries.
This draft amendment revealed a split between doctors and nurses: the Chamber of Physicians demanded that the draft legislation be withdrawn, annoyed by the fact that it is only nurses who have achieved a rise in salaries. On Wednesday, November 2, the chamber went on to express fears that nursing staff will be better paid than doctors although they work under doctors' auspices.
Mária Lévyová, the head of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, commented on Thursday that this was a blatant violation of all agreements between the unions. Head of the Legislation Committee of the Chamber of Physicians Dagmar Takácsová said – as quoted by the Sme daily on Friday, November 4 – that the chamber regarded the bill as non-systematic, discriminating between one group of employees and another (i.e. by increasing salaries for nurses but not doctors). Lévyová also criticised the Slovak Union of Medical and Social Workers, which expressed support for nurses but also called the bill non-systematic.
Source: Sme
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
