Trade unions of healthcare employees are threatening protests in response to a bill on their salaries as adopted by the Government on Wednesday. According to it, the salaries of medical staff, apart from doctors, should be increased by an average of 16 percent in both state and private hospitals. Around €55 million is to be redistributed among approximately 38,000 employees. Trade unions and the chambers of nurses and midwives, technical employees and therapists are unhappy that the bill does not cover outpatient surgeries, spas and social services centres too. They also bemoan the coefficients for calculating the basic component of salaries and are distrustful of the Health Ministry's comments that it will be possible to adjust those in the future.
The minimum level of the basic salary component concerned has been calculated in line with adjustments to doctors' salaries and should mean that, for example, nurses should receive income reaching 81 percent of the overall average received by employees in all sectors of the economy two years ago. The bill regulates the salaries of 24 medical professions such as pharmacists, nurses, medical laboratory technicians and orderlies, but it excludes doctors.
