By: Fides
Due to the deliberate spread of misinformation about the doctor’s strike, we clarify that doctors exercising their right to strike also work 40 hours per week and have 8-hour shifts during the strike. Therefore, they work a full work schedule, which is also the European prescribed working norm for doctors, often exceeding the full-time workload.
Patients coming to healthcare facilities see doctors working, and these are indeed doctors on strike who work as much as most employees in our country.
We warned the government of the possibility of a strike and proposed to start negotiations immediately to prevent a strike. We also suggested negotiating every two days and provided proposed dates for discussions. However, in one month, the government did nothing to prevent the strike and did not even accept the initiative for negotiations. Today, we entered the ninth week of the strike, and we still feel that they are not taking us seriously.
We also alerted the government to administrative issues, unrelated to healthcare, that people face when renewing their driver’s licenses requiring a medical certificate. The government deliberately does not address these complications, although they could easily resolve them, using them as leverage against the striking doctors. They lack other arguments. We emphasise that employees at URI Soča continue to perform their duties while exercising their right to strike.
The government deliberately misleads by constantly repeating that doctors are striking to dismantle the public healthcare system. The truth is quite the opposite. This and previous governments have weakened the public healthcare system to the point where it is collapsing on its own. That is why we were forced to use extreme measures because we demand a solution for the public healthcare system and better working conditions.