The unions are striving to fulfill that commitment from 2011. However, they do not agree with him in this form. The threatened protest of thousands of doctors continues. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday.
“In areas other than remuneration, we have an agreement on the next course of action,” said Radek Policar, senior director of the legislative department.
“Representatives of the chamber and trade unions continue to insist on increasing the salary scales, this does not seem like an appropriate method to us. It means that you raise everyone equally,” he added.
Válek: 60 percent of income in Czech hospitals goes to salaries, which is more than in the West
While the ministry wanted to add only those doctors who have lower salaries, so that they are not so dependent on overtime pay, the unions want everyone to be added to the tariffs across the board and no one will be impoverished.
“This would cover up the huge differences in salaries and wages that exist between hospitals,” said the head of health unions, Dagmar Žitníková, referring to differences in remuneration in teaching hospitals and, for example, joint-stock companies that establish hospitals.
That would be for next year. From January 2025, Válk’s department wants to adopt a special law on the remuneration of health workers, which will fulfill the memorandum from 2011, in which the then Minister of Health Leoš Heger (TOP 09) agreed with the trade unions to link the salaries of health workers to the average wage.
They should be 1.5 to 3 times the average wage, currently 65 to 130 thousand crowns gross.
They don’t believe in war promises
But the trade unions do not agree with this. A number of protesting doctors demand the fulfillment of commitments from 2011, especially in terms of remuneration. If they were fulfilled, they would retreat from the December protest. However, they do not believe in the promises of the current minister Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09).
According to them, this is not a sufficient guarantee that changes will occur. They would prefer if the method of remuneration were quickly incorporated into the fragmented amendment to the Labor Code, which Ministers of Health, War and Labor Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) want to send to the House of Representatives in the coming days.
They already promised it last week, but they are still processing the doctors’ comments. The amendment is primarily intended to enable 24-hour work in hospitals without rest and to reduce possible agreed overtime to 416 hours per year.
On the contrary, all the participants in Wednesday’s meeting agreed on the introduction of education coordinators in all faculty and other directly managed hospitals, who will oversee that doctors can prepare for certification and no one pressures them for it.
Supervision will be done by the Ministry and the Institute for the Education of Health Professionals. The consensus is also that there is a need to reorganize work in hospitals in such a way as to limit the overtime services of doctors.
But they are not backing down from the protests yet. The next meeting is planned for Monday. About 6,000 doctors out of approximately 13,000 who serve them, according to the medical chamber, have resigned from overtime since December. For some hospitals, this would mean a reduction in non-acute care.
