On Wednesday, dozens of employees from several hospitals in Brașov decided to participate in a one-hour warning strike. They requested a fair remuneration for their work in ensuring the continuity of the medical act. Among the demands were the indexation of wages according to the rate of inflation, the increase of the amount of food allowances and the correct remuneration of overtime hours. Also, the medical staff asked for the improvement of working conditions, necessary to cover the shortage of personnel and maintain a decent working environment.
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 all the medical units in the county where the Sanitary Solidarity Union has members and where they 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’s 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 enough salary income, fails to even cover inflation. Next are the promises of our governors and more specifically the collective labor contract by sector have been broken. (…) We have a problem with food allowances, which are still currently calculated based on the salaries of 2018. (…) We should have received, in average, about 35% more than what was given by Ordinance 19/2024”, said the trade unionist from Brasov, quoted by Agerpres.
The medical staff wants to sue the Government
He specified that, depending on “the way things are going”, it will be decided whether there will be other protest actions, 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, perhaps, something more if we want to say that I received a salary increase. (…) 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.
The ATI section works in emergency mode
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 grievances are) unrecovered overtime, unpaid overtime, blocked positions. It puts pressure on us to work overtime. We are exhausted both physically and mentally and we simply don’t have time to recover as we would have need”, said Ovidiu Iamandei, medical assistant at 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.
