ANS: Doctors' Salaries Appear to Be Biggest Obstacle to Reaching Agreement

Bratislava, December 16 (TASR) - The issue of an increase in doctors' salaries appears to be the biggest obstacle to reaching an agreement between the government and the Medical Trade Union Association (LOZ), chairman of the Slovak Trade Union of Health and Social Services Anton Szalay and Association of Slovak Hospitals (ANS) president Marian Petko concurred following several-hour-long extraordinary meeting of the sectoral tripartite on Monday. According to them, there is agreement on more than half of LOZ's demands within the tripartite, the resolution of the others is still subject to further negotiations. "At least ten points have been basically agreed, some of them are being discussed if they can be resolved by the end of the year with an amendment to the law. In my opinion it couldn't be done, but in the first-second quarter of the new year it could be done and we have no problem with that," said Petko, stressing, however, that ANS disagrees in principle with the demand to introduce criminal liability for hospital directors in the event of a shortage of doctors or nurses in a hospital. According to Petko, directors can't be held responsible if the state itself admits that there aren't enough doctors and nurses in Slovakia. According to him, there is still no agreement on the issue of salaries. He stressed that the government made a mistake when it unilaterally violated the memorandum signed with LOZ in 2022 by the then cabinet. This, he said, was a key point in the negotiations. "If we want the situation to calm down, we'll have to look at what to do with [salary-related] Act 578 and the coefficients. I don't see any other solution at the moment. But that is a political decision of the government," he added. am