Sarajevo Canton: Doctors and Dentists Go on Strike

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry in Sarajevo Canton (KS) announced a strike for today because the KS Government, as they state, did not comply with the provisions of the Collective Agreement concluded last year.

The work stoppage will last until the demands are met.

Namely, Article 67 of the Collective Agreement states that coefficients should be increased quarterly until the end of this budget year. It was agreed that the Union should hold negotiations with the KS Government every three months to assess the increase in coefficients, depending on the inflow of funds into the budget of the KS Health Insurance Institute, but the Government, according to the Union, does not respect this.

They state that negotiations for the first quarter of this year began with a month and a half delay, because the Government did not respond to the Union's initiative on time. The negotiations then lasted twice as long instead of fifteen days. At the beginning of July, they submitted a new initiative for negotiations, but without results.

There is also a problem with the Government's measure to extend working hours in Health Centers in KS, which, as they assess, makes no sense and serves only to score political points.

The Union states that if the strike does not yield positive results, they will organize protests with colleagues from other parts of the Federation of BiH and file a criminal complaint against those responsible for undermining the healthcare system as a public good.

KS Health Minister Zilha Ademaj claims that there is simply no money to meet the demands of the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry in Sarajevo Canton.