Over 200 nurses from the Žilina hospital submitted their notices on Wednesday, with more nurses from hospitals around Slovakia expected to follow suit shortly. This is over their dissatisfaction with how the Health Ministry has dealt with beefs about pay and working conditions. "We've decided on this extreme measure because nobody listens to us," says Nurse and Midwives Labour Union head Monika Kavecká. Nurses and other medical workers (not doctors, however) have a total of five demands. They are a proper level of funding for health care facilities and a bill not only applicable to hospital staff but also to personnel in doctor's offices, spas and social service facilities. They also insist that maternity leave and time spent unemployed be counted towards the period of their specialised experience, as well as on hiring extra nurses and midwives to hospitals, and on factoring the number of years one has worked in the sector into the calculation of the pay rise. According to OECD's data there are 5.8 practicing nurses per 1000 inhabitants in Slovakia, which supports an argument nurses and midwives are making, saying there is too little of them. Moreover the OECD data shows the average wage of hospital nurses is about 10 percent lower than the average wage in the Slovak economy. Nurse salaries also vary according to the region and employer.
The representatives of the nurses and midwives said that more notices should be filed by the end of November with an eye to making sure that the two-month notice period begins to run from December 1. "The nurses will be unemployed as of February 2016," said Head of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives (SKSaPA) Iveta Lazorová adding that the nurses won't backtrack on their decision unless their demands are met. Parliament on Wednesday approved a bill increasing salaries of health-care workers both in state and private hospitals beginning in January. The pay raise will apply to over 20 occupations such as nurses, medical laboratory technicians and orderlies. Head of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives (SKSaPA) Iveta Lazorová called the bill a 'farce'. She added that it's not only about salaries, but about improvements to the sector as a whole. Delivering on the demands of nurses and fellow medical workers would cost €200 million next year, said Health Minister Viliam Čislák, rather than €55 million envisaged vis-a-vis the bill approved in Parliament on Wednesday. The Minister went on to call the agreement a 'compromise'.
