A warning tent village embodying a protest of nurses and midwives was gradually erected in front of the Cabinet Office in Bratislava on Wednesday. Dozens of nurses have been in place since early morning, others kept arriving throughout the day protesting against their low social standing and miserable salaries. “We can't identify with the current form of the health-care system,” asserted chair of the nurses and midwives trade union Monika Kavecka, appealing to the authorities not to force nurses to go abroad in search of work.
In the park outside the Government Office, nurses wearing blue uniforms typical of the pre-1989 era set up approximately twenty tents to stay in during the next three protest days. Half of the nurses were dressed in this way, aiming to show with the clothing that very little has changed in the health-care sector over the past two decades. Others, dressed as the homeless, are pointing to what they call 'legislative homelessness'. Supporting nurses and midwives in Bratislava, nurses also held a rally outside the building of the Constitutional Court in Košice, in Eastern Slovakia and those who could not come to either of the venues are wearing black ribbons on their uniforms in support of the protest.
Health Minister Zuzana Zvolenská met with the protesting nurses at the Ministry on Wednesday afternoon and then on Thursday morning came to visit them unexpectedly at their campsite, according to the teraz.sk news portal. However, they did not reach any agreement. While sisters and midwives want the situation to change right now, the Minister wants to wait for the draft state budget for 2014. Today, Thursday, is the second of their three-day long camp-out strike, which should be then followed by a campaign pressuring the Government to give more money to the health-care sector. Listen to the Monday show, in which we’ll give you a full round up and outcome of the protest.
