Slovakia Doctors Resign

PRAGUE -- The Czech government has agreed to deploy 30 army doctors in Slovak hospitals after more than a thousand local doctors resigned over low pay.

Prime Minister Petr Necas says they could stay for 60 days. Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra said Friday they will be deployed over the weekend.

The Slovak government has asked neighboring countries to send help after 1,200 doctors of some 7,000 in state-run hospitals left their jobs Thursday.

The Health Ministry also said other neighbors, including Austria, Hungary and Poland have offered to treat Slovak patients in their hospitals located near the border, if necessary.

Originally, more than 2,000 doctors threatened to leave but some of them accepted an offer for a 300 Euro ($405) pay increase and withdrew resignations.

Earlier this week, Slovakia declared a state of emergency in more than a dozen hospitals. This means that doctors in the selected hospitals need to remain in their positions or pay a fine which, according to AFP, amounts to about 1,500 Euro.

Speaking after an emergency government meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said she agreed that the salaries were "inadequate" but said the government could not afford to increase its offer because of the debt crisis in Europe.

AFP reports that low wages have caused many Slovak and Czech doctors to move abroad.

Comments

[Pauline Jaing]

12:06 AM on 12/04/2011

Eh, zealots, Slovakia is in the EU, its not socialist, you can't join the EU without a market economy.

The facts in both Canada and the EU show that under a national health insurance, there is LESS surgeries, sickness, etc., because people are healthier (and there are even less sick days0.

You sidewinders cannot have it both ways either -- you cannot claim out of one side of your mouths that socialised health insurance does not provide services, and then turn around and claim that it provides too many services.

Gawd have you no self respect?

[moroccantreasures]

06:19 PM on 12/03/2011

Prague is a nice place to visit. Beautiful women, cheap designer clothes, awesome club life but the food is BADDD, I ordered a meat platter and didnt realize one of them was horse. Not good. Its a good thing their booze rock cause you need to have a drink to get the food down!! I wish someone had a really good recipe from there cause the 2 weeks I stayed I didnt eat anything worth while. The closet thing to a decent meal was some tapas stytle sides.

[Europlan]

12:13 PM on 12/04/2011

moroccantreasures: So you don't like the food n Prague: Next time you go to the "mother city", jump on Tram 2 and head West. Continue through the Mala Strana and up the hill aound the backside of Prague Castle. Continue on about five stops to the Brevnov Monastery stop. Wander throught the baroque gates into the courtyard of the 1,000 year old working monastery. Associated with adjacent Hotel Adelbert, you will find Klasterni Senk (Monastery Tavern). This restuarant serves well prepared, authentic, non tourist menu Boheman Food. The thyme flavored, cremed potatoes brought us back for a second meal. The beer, made by the monks, was great!!! The Hotel Adelbert and the tavern stand directly in front of the church, a seventeeth century baroque masterpiece. A great place and affordable place to stay while in Prague.If you have a car, there is free parking. During the Communist era, The jesuits were evicted form the monastery, and the building now a charming, moderately priced , eco-hotel, was used as a barracks by the Soviet KGB. The lady at the hotel desk gave us the history from personal perspectives.

[mikey09]

06:09 PM on 12/03/2011

When I had my last child, my doctor thanked me for his new swimming pool. He earned it, had a C-Section and couldn't have done that alone.....:-)

[archarabia]

02:39 PM on 12/03/2011

I never accept any government's excuse (including the US) that the $$ isn't there. Congress came up with big money ASAP To reward banks for fraud, but drag their feet to fund social service programs

[mikey09]

06:02 PM on 12/03/2011

With a 15 trillion dollar debt, I'm not in doubt.

[iamone3]

01:19 PM on 12/03/2011

Coming to your local hospital.

[Djay0252]

12:01 PM on 12/03/2011

Drs do good work and should be paid well but I believe Drs should remember the oath they took and that compassion should overcome greed.

[Syllogizer]

12:30 PM on 12/03/2011

But why are you so quick to accuse them of greed? They are not AMA members, after all;)

Seriously: not every complaint about low pay is motivated by greed.

[Foucek]

01:51 PM on 12/03/2011

But ... if they currently have patients in the hospital that are acutely ill those patients should not be abandoned.

[Djay0252]

04:57 PM on 12/03/2011

I was not making the assumption that greed is what every Dr is after. I am only pointing out the opposite ends of the 'spectrum" of choices they might make. I am sure there are doctors throughout that spectrum from the top to the bottom.

[mikey09]

06:04 PM on 12/03/2011

You could say that abt lots of professions, teachers even the trash men, when they strike they hurt other people and public safety

[AnotherAngle]

08:47 AM on 12/03/2011

I hate to say this (well, not really) but there were a lot of us that could say "I told you so" about now. Ah, the beauty of socialized medicine.

[rayinprague]

08:35 AM on 12/03/2011

One problem in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia is that patients overuse medical services because they are so cheap. Doctors wind up being overworked due to people who just want to talk to someone and have nothing really wrong with them.
The medical profession is looked on as a regular job, not some higher class of person. Medical school is much less expensive, so doctors aren't as badly in debt when they graduate.

[jcko]

05:08 PM on 12/03/2011

I guess you also believe poor people are lazy.

[rayinprague]

05:39 PM on 12/03/2011

Actually, the Czech Republic has started charging people about $2 per doctor's visit to cut down on unnecessary visits. It is a real problem. Not everyone does it, by any means. But enough people do it that it causes a real burden on the system. If something is free, people tend to take more than they need.

[Roadrun]

08:29 AM on 12/03/2011

Great going Slovak government! The teapublicons hadn't thought of this before and now you gave them ideas! American doctors get ready, if you think teachers were ruthlessly attacked you are about to become educated.

[AnotherAngle]

08:55 AM on 12/03/2011

Quite the contrary. This is what we TOLD you would happen!

[Roadrun]

09:26 AM on 12/03/2011

See? This ones about to start telling you how doctors make too much and are causing all the problems. He wants doctors out of the middle class too.

[mikey09]

06:07 PM on 12/03/2011

What? In my area it is happening. Doctors are refusing to take mediciad and medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates and slow pay.

[maconmo]

08:15 AM on 12/03/2011

Just wait folks, the big corporations will begin working at lowering physicians wages in this country. Right now they are working over public employees; they won't stop there. Besides, with the costs of student loan repayments and malpractice insurance, a lot of doctors struggle financially unless they work 120 hours a week.

[Europlan]

12:26 PM on 12/04/2011

Young American professionals have encounterd ridiculouly expenisve tuition. It is a huge rip- off for them and their future patients and clients. Doctors and dentists wages in the futurte will have to be off the charts high so they can back these ridiculous educational costs. You cannot compare doctors wages in the US and Slovakia. That is like comparing an average American CEO salary with the lowest paid worker in this or her company. The average differential in America is now 300 to one (up from 30 to one thirty years ago). The Slovakian doctors make peanuts compared with the US and medical care there is decent, as it is throughout the rest of the civilized western world. The USA has by far the highest costs, because the money flows to the top of the , congressiopnally proteected, private insurance companies, and the medical professionals here are well paid

[jayes]

08:12 AM on 12/03/2011

doctors are important and need incentives, but a balance need be struck between that and overcompensation.

[CarolinaDem]

07:52 AM on 12/03/2011

How can you write an article like this without putting the central issue into any kind of context? It doesn't even tell us what the doctors' pay is, or how it stacks up against, say, captains in the army. I would have thought curiosity would have had to be satisfied before you wrote.

[Unabashed Liberal]

08:24 AM on 12/03/2011

According to Visolajsky, the average monthly salary of a young doctor in Slovakia is between 550 and 600 euros ($800), while experienced specialists earn between 1,000 and 1,200 euros.
The ministry has offered physicians an average rise of 300 euros, but the medical trade unions are asking for the salaries to be increased to between 1,140 and 2,280 euros, compared with Slovakia's average salary of 760 euros.

I think the doctors have point.

[CarolinaDem]

11:05 AM on 12/03/2011

Thank you. I guess I have no reason to judge other people's economic struggles, but I agree: they got a point indeed.

[jeffrey678]

08:44 AM on 12/03/2011

They don't want to tell you the real reason. Doctors are resigning over forced privatization of the health care system not wages.

It's absurd not to mention that the doctors are protesting the government­'s plan to privatize hospitals.

The doctors' demands have been endorsed by unions across Visegrád and wider Europe. According to Slovak reports the Paris-base­d European Federation of Salaried Doctors (FEMS) has said, in effect, that the doctors are waging a brave war against a corrupt government seeking to sell hospitals to Penta, a friendly investment fund.

[Geauterre]

07:45 AM on 12/03/2011

Using a little logic, the administration of stem cells would go a long, long way into correcting this, as well as so many other complaints in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. Of course then the problem we would have is a classic threat of revolt. Imagine for a moment what it would be like . . . having a real technician, or a robot facility, administering stem cells, curing the ill, lengthening the lifespan, making people happier. Hmm. Might even bring back the concept of doctors visiting patients again.

[1differentdrummer]

07:18 AM on 12/03/2011

Should they move here and become millionaires?

[Europlan]

12:31 PM on 12/04/2011

even better ,move to the US and jump ship to work as an executive in the private insurance industry. Now we are talking real money. Czech and Slovak people are highly industrious and well educated. They have a history of great industriousness. While it was put in a bottel by the Soviets, it is now coming bak rapidly. They always had great inventors and excellent doctors.

[nicko68]

07:06 AM on 12/03/2011

Socialized Medicine?