site.btaProtesting Medical Staff at Sofia's Sveta Ekaterina Hospital Demand 20% Salary Increase

Medical staff at Sofia's Sveta Ekaterina Hospital Tuesday staged a protest, demanding a 20% salary increase.

Doctors, nurses, lab technicians and other medical staff insist that the funding of clinical pathways in cardiology must increase. They cite the management as saying that 50% of the hospital's total revenue is allocated for salaries.

Another key demand is that the hospital must be paid for activities above the budgeted limit, which have exceeded BGN 2 million.

While the infrastructure is good, there is a shortage of staff, with one nurse and one doctor often covering duties for two or three people, said nurse Lyubka Atanasova. There are only four nurses in the invasive cardiology department. She also said nurses in that department earn BGN 1,800 per month, and warned that without adequate pay, there will not be enough staff.

"We gave two weeks, expecting concrete results, but all we have are promises," said Krasimir Mitov, President of the Zashtita (Protection) National Trade Union, which organized the protest. Mitov said he attended a meeting on Monday where salaries were discussed, but the message was that none of the hospitals had been paid for services exceeding the budgeted limits. Some hospitals have said they will not raise salaries even if those expenditures are reimbursed, as the funds have already been spent. He presumed this meant that Sveta Ekaterina Hospital and other hospitals will not get any salary increase this year. "Hospitals are commercial entities and are not funded by the Health Ministry," he said.

The protesters briefly blocked traffic in front of the hospital.

After the Easter holidays, protesting medical staff from the southwestern towns of Sandanski, Blagoevgrad and Petrich are expected to block the road to Kulata on the border with Greece, Mitov said.

In early April, Health Minister Silvi Kirilov and Zashtita Trade Union leaders discussed problems in health care at what he described as "a productive meeting". Kirilov noted that some of the problems called for revisions in legislation, for which working groups had been set up, while others required financing and some steps were already being planned in that direction.