Minister of Health Kamil Šaško (Voice-SD) claims that after Monday’s meeting with the Medical Trade Union (LOZ) they identified five or six key points in order to reach an agreement. Ideally within this week. The head of the health department announced this after the sectoral tripartite meeting. According to the minister, wages are one of these points.
“Negotiations will continue. Today I will not comment extensively on the progress, because it makes no sense to further aggravate an already tense situation. I can confirm that today, after dozens of hours of negotiations, we are together identified five or six key points, which are such that we mature ideally yet within this week to be agreed,” declared the minister. He confirmed that one of the measures is question of wages.
According to him, the LOZ demands the convening of an extraordinary session of the parliament for the other demands“what is a political question,” he stated. He is convinced that these requirements are not correct “sew with a hot needle”but they should pass a proper transparent legislative process.
The minister declares that is ready to negotiate further. “The only way to reach an agreement is a rational constructive approach,” he noted. According to him, the negotiations will continue on Tuesday (December 17) and Wednesday (December 18). “If we agree on what is and what is not realistically achievable by the end of the year, we can still reach an agreement this week.” he said, adding that he would do everything to make it happen.
Minister of Health Šaško called on Monday afternoon extraordinary session of the sectoral tripartite and hoped that the result of the meeting would be income to compromises with LOZ. However, that did not happen. They will continue the negotiations.
The head of LOZ, Peter Visolajský, declared after the negotiations that the trade unionists are also doing everything to reach an agreement as soon as possible. “Today we communicated some things to which we still want answers. The minister promised to give us an answer in the near future. Also his team is working on fulfilling those things and safeguards to make it valid,” he clarified. According to him, the doctors added another to the 19 requirements. They demand repeal of the legislation to ensure affordable health care, which was signed by Slovak President Peter Pellegrini last week.
More than 3,300 doctors from hospitals across Slovakia resigned as a sign of dissatisfaction with the situation in the healthcare sector. On Monday, the doctors began to administer statements from overtime. They are willing to withdraw their resignations if the government will start fulfilling their demands. In particular, they insist on fulfilling the points of the memorandum from 2022, which the then government cabinet signed with the medical trade unions.