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Ukrainian doctors demand change after healthcare reforms [1]

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Date: 2023-08

“To the minister of health of Ukraine, Viktor Liashko, Happy Doctors’ Day! I am asking you to prohibit the uncontrolled reduction of wages for medical workers! Let the money follow not only the patients but also medical workers.”

This was the message of many cards sent to Ukraine’s Ministry of Health by members of the nurses’ movement BeLikeNina ahead of the country’s annual Doctors’ Day on 27 July.

BeLikeNina is demanding the government address the problems facing Ukraine’s nurses and doctors, from primary care workers going unpaid for months due to a lack of funds in hospitals to new laws that facilitate layoffs, as well as low wages and nurses quitting due to work overload.

On Doctors’ Day, a dozen of BeLikeNina's representatives and medical workers went to the Ministry of Health in Kyiv to try and have Liashko listen to their concerns.

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But they weren’t allowed to enter the building due to bureaucratic procedures and additional wartime security measures. They instead had to stand outside and discuss their problems among themselves as ministerial workers passed by. The medics left feeling it is impossible to get the government to listen to them – especially during the war.

BeLikeNina was founded in 2019 and its workload has soared in the past two years. Today, it is an umbrella organisation for a number of local trade medic unions and has several thousand members, many of whom were eager to also travel to the ministry to voice their problems but were unable to do so because mass gatherings and protests have been banned since martial law was imposed in Ukraine.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-doctors-nurses-healthcare-reforms-low-wages-layoffs-demand-change-unions/

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