“We are physically and mentally exhausted, we don’t have time to recover” / “There is pressure on us to work extra”

Dozens of employees of several Braşov hospitals participated, on Wednesday, in a one-hour warning strike, demanding a fair payment because it ensures the continuity of the medical act, namely the indexation of salaries with the inflation rate, the increase in the amount of food allowances and the correct payment of hours additional, but also ensuring decent working conditions, by covering the lack of staff, reports Agerpres.

Employees of three hospitals in Braşov County – the County Hospital, the Psychiatry and Neurology Hospital, and the Maternity Hospital – went out to the courtyard of the institutions during their lunch break, but the protest was attended by all medical units in the county where the Sanitary Solidarity Union has members and where could, that is, through such an action the provision of the medical certificate was not put in difficulty due to the reduced number of staff, stated the co-president of the union’s county branch, Florin Maleş.

He also mentioned that the employees of the County Ambulance Service and the school medicine offices in Braşov also joined the protest action.

“It is a strike against the Government’s social policies, a preamble to the general strike. The reason is Ordinance 19, which discriminates against all categories of employees in the health system and which does not bring sufficiency to salary incomes, does not even manage to cover inflation. Further, the promises of our governors and more precisely the collective labor contract per sector are violated. (…) We have a problem with food allowances, which are still currently calculated on salaries from 2018. (…) We should have received, on average, approximately 35% more than what was given by Ordinance 19/2024 “, said the trade unionist from Brasov.

He specified that, depending on “the way things are going” it will be decided whether other protest actions will take place, but he emphasized that the union is preparing steps to take the Government to court for non-compliance with the collective labor contract.

“We want to be respected first of all as workers in the Ambulance Service and secondly in the health system and to have a decent salary, at least to cover the level of inflation and maybe something extra if we want to say that I got a raise. (…) The system is collapsing and will collapse soon if the problems are not solved”, said Gabriel Cozea, one of the employees of SAJ Braşov who joined the protest in the yard of SCJU Braşov.

The protest in the courtyard of the largest health units in Brasov County was also attended by medical personnel employed in the ATI department, where there are among the biggest problems due to the lack of staff.

According to them, practically, the ATI section of the hospital has only 50% of the necessary assistants, so that, instead of two patients that should be taken care of by one, as the law provides, their number is double. They also argue that, while in the private health system the food norm is 600 lei, in the state it is 300 taxable lei. At the same time, due to the lack of staff, there are employees who have not taken leave for several years.

“(Our complaints are no) unrecovered overtime, unpaid overtime, blocked positions. We are under pressure to work extra. We are exhausted both physically and mentally and we simply do not have time to recover as we would need”, said Ovidiu Iamandei, medical assistant in the ATI section of SCJU Braşov.

Following the Memorandum by which several posts in the health system were unblocked, at SCJU Braşov 4 positions of doctors and one position of medical assistant were put up for competition, stated the leader of the union Solidaritatea Sanitară Braşov, Florin Maleş.