Doctors and nurses marched through Bucharest on 2 November to protest against their low salaries and lagging investment in the health care sector. Symbolising the system’s ‘death by underinvestment’, the doctors and nurses carried crosses, coffins and wreaths. The College of Doctors said over 3,000 doctors leave the country every year in search of more gainful employment. Newly qualified doctors receive less than €200 per month, an amount the unions have demanded be doubled. Trade unions also demand that at least 6% of GDP be spent on health care and have threatened a general strike may still follow this month’s protest march. In reaction to the petition for a general strike, the government has announced it will create a state-funded scholarship of €150 per month for all resident doctors, which will be added to their salaries.
English: http://www.romania-insider.com/doctors-and-nurses-take-to-the-streets ...
http://www.romania-insider.com/amidst-threats-of-a-doctors-strike-romanian-govt ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.