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Tag: nurses
If nurses will try through the courts to carve out their wage claims, they would probably succeed. This opinion was expressed by Ombudswoman Jana Dubovcová. Amendments signed between nurses and employers are according to her forced and nurses would have no problem to prove it in court. And if the legal act is enforced, it is not made freely and seriously, generally the court declares this act as void. Failure to comply with the law only because of the lack of resources is according to Ombudswoman unacceptable and undermines the basic principles of democracy.
Salaries of nurses should be increased gradually until the end of the year, or from May they will be guaranteed only for nurses in state hospitals. This for now seems to be a solution of the problem with mandatorily increased wages of nurses and the fact that hospitals do not have money to cover them. Representatives of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives so far do not like any of these options. The definitive solution will be decided on Friday's Assembly of the Chamber.
According to the Slovak Medical Union of Specialist not all nurses agree with the opinion of their Chamber, which promotes the Act on wage claims of nurses. President of the Union, Andrej Janco, considers the attitude of the head of Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, Mária Lévyová, directly threatens their jobs. Nurses are, however, allegedly afraid to talk about it publicly, as their professional competency is controlled by the chamber of nurses: if they lost the professional competency they would lose their job.
According to the head of the Association of Hospitals in Slovakia, Marián Petko, from June there will be a threat of dismissals of nurses and cancellation of departments in hospitals. Costs of small hospitals on wages are already now in amount of 85% of their total costs. After further raise of salaries of doctors in July hospitals will have to use all their resources on salaries. Petko urged nurses for a compromise, for example that the wages would increase gradually.
First negotiation between nurses and new Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská did not bring any concrete results. Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives and Minister were seeking for the solutions of the problem with statutory raise of salaries and allegedly took over some alternatives how to solve the situation with its financial covering. Minister will talk with Ministry of Finance and then she will meet nurses again.
New Minister of Health, Zuzana Zvolenská, asked hospitals not to push nurses to unfavourable contracts. On her first meeting with nurses they discussed how to find money for statutory increasing of their salaries. Minister says that money could be gained by better setting of healthcare system or by finishing the setting of prices of pharmaceuticals. She has already negotiated about this situation with Minister of Finance and claims that she did not ask for money out of health chapter. Minister wants to find money also in the state-owned Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa (General Health Insurance Company).
Salaries of nurses in hospital in Malacky are from April not in accordance with law. Hospital for now does not increase the salaries to the minimum level of € 640 granted by the law, as, according to its director, hospital does not have resources for it. Management of hospital offered nurses the amendments to their contracts, which divided their duty for medical and administrative part. Nurses refused it, so the original contracts remain in force. Hospital is now expecting the visit from the labour inspectorate, which will examine whether the wage situation is in accordance with the law.
This week, Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská should meet the representatives of Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives. They should talk about increasing of their wages, which was brought by the new act and its consequences. New head of MoH sees a reason of current problem in the lack of communication. She should also discuss the situation in department with the representatives of Ministry of Finance.
For now, General Prosecutor's Office has not decided on the initiative of Slovak Medical Chamber, by which they tried to stop the force of Act on minimum wage claims of nurses, which increases their wages from April. According to the spokeswoman of Prosecutor's Office, the supervising prosecutor asked Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family for the statement to this problem.
Nurses in hospital in Malacky, nevertheless, succeeded in carving out of higher salaries granted by the law from April. According to its director, hospital can not fired the most of nurses considering they did not sign the amendments, which would reduce their job time. However for higher wages are not funds, in force still remain existing contracts with the old salaries and if the hospital does not receive more money, it will knowingly violate the law.
