FOCUS ON HEALTH CARE REPORTAGE
and the UK. In early 2010, Czech doctors launched their massive campaign “Thanks, We’re Leaving”, where more than 3800 doctors, that is about one fourth of all hospital doctors declared their resignation and put together a list of 13 reasons for their exodus. And the government finally agreed to raise doctors’ salaries by 5000-8000 KC/ per month, with promises of further raises. Angry rhetoric also characterised the campaign of the Slovak doctors’ union, which has employed clear references to regime change – claiming that it wants to dismantle the current, malfunctioning social security system, just like the corrupt and malfunctioning authoritarian regime was dismantled in 1989. The Slovak minister of health care, Ivan Uhliarik, accused LOZ of taking patients as hostages. The response came quickly
and simply: “It’s the political elite that has been doing so [taking hostages] for years”. During the 2 months of the campaign, “Let’s Rescue Healthcare”, about 2500 doctors (including half of all the doctors in Bratislava and 100% at a particular ward in Nitra) signed a resignation notice. At the dramatic height of events, Ivan Uhliarik agreed with LOZ to raise the salaries of doctors in several steps and to stop the privatization of state hospitals. The Hungarian situation did not look much more promising – the Health Portfolio proposed that doctors would be obliged to stay at the hospital where they received their specialization for four years, in order to prevent them from leaving the country. This plan did not make it through, and no agreement has been reached in the meantime. Following
their Slovak colleagues, the Hungarian doctors also decided to organize a joint “quit and leave” action, with more than 2200 individuals joining the campaign “For Viable Healthcare” by early December. These figures are but the logical extension of an ongoing process, considering the data of earlier years – in 2006, 520 doctors asked for their certificates for employment abroad at the Doctors’s Chamber, while in 2009 and 2010 this number rose to 1500. VISEGRAD ON THE MOVE Recognizing the similarities between the problems of health care in the V4, the unions decided to work out common strategic plans for co-operation. In fact, the campaigns in Slovakia and Hungary were to a large extent inspired by these frameworks and the previous 83