OZ SaPA to Negotiate Stabilisation of Medical Staff with Health Section Chief

Bratislava, November 13 (TASR) - Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) recommended the nurses and midwives labour union (OZ SaPA) to negotiate a plan for stabilising the medical staff with head of the Health Ministry's Health Section Peter Cvapek, OZ SaPA chair Monika Kavecka said following their meeting with the minister on Wednesday. She believes that they could come to the first measures as soon as in upcoming weeks. "Now we have a clear plan, the head of the health section is available to us, we will hold intensive talks with him and we will see whether the efforts declared by the minister will really be transformed into actions," noted Kavecka. She expects the first settings to be achieved in the next few weeks. These might concern, for example, fair remuneration of nurses and personnel standards in hospitals, she said. Kavecka reiterated that the situation with nurses in Slovakia is critical and that there's a lack of them already now. She stressed that if nothing changes in the near future, even those nurses who remained in the sector will begin to quietly leave, adding that overtime work notices are still in the frame. "Nurses are doing it individually, we're just providing legal consulting to them," said Kavecka, who decline to give an exact number at the moment. OZ SaPA urges the government to come up with solutions to stop the growing shortages in health personnel and improve its working conditions because if nothing changes, the health sector is headed towards a collapse. ko/mcs