site.btaUPDATED Medical Professionals Protest in Sofia Demanding Decent Salaries

Young medical professionals protested again on Tuesday, demanding decent salaries outside the Health Ministry building before blocking the traffic on Orlov Most (Eagles Bridge). Traffic has been fully restored. The medical professionals called for the salary of a doctor without a specialty to be 150% of the average wage in the country.

"If there are no changes, we will continue with the protests," said Dr. Daniel Kiprov. "We continue to deal with the mockery that politicians have been subjecting us to for months," he said. Kiprov recalled that politicians promised that there would be legislative changes by the end of July. According to him, the extension of the deadline of the working group, which is supposed to refine the texts of the bills for changes to the Medical Treatment Facilities Act until October 31, means that they will justify themselves with a lack of funds in next year's budget.

"We no longer believe that the talks we are holding have any meaning," said medical student Vasilena Kiara Dimitrova. In her words, this is a delaying tactic. "The experts at the Ministry told us that the regulation on specializations cannot specify salaries, even minimum ones, but there is such a regulation at the Ministry of Education and Science, which even specifies the minimum salaries for teachers in figures," Dimitrova added. 

"We managed to collect signatures for an extraordinary meeting of the parliamentary Health Committee tomorrow to discuss the proposed changes," said Continue the Change Chair Assen Vassilev, who also attended the protest. "We hope that the Committee will support the demands of young doctors, which we propose in our bill - linking salaries to the average wage," he added. According to him, linking pay to the collective labor agreement has not worked. "Our analyses show that an increase in the requested remuneration would require BGN 240 million per year," Vassilev said. 

The young doctors said they would organize another protest next week.