Doctors and nurses on strike

Health minister and unions to continue dialogue

21.09.2013 u 15:00

Bionic
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A social dialogue between the heads of doctors' and nurses' unions Ivica Babic and Anica Prasnjak respectively with Health Minister Rajko Ostojic will be held on Saturday afternoon in the ministry.

Social dialogue is the pre-condition to continue negotiations on a collective agreement and the end of a strike in hospitals which has entered its fourth day.

Minister Ostojic announced on Radio 101 that negotiations were to continue which was later confirmed to reporters by Babic.

Ostojic once again claimed that strikers were not being roll called in hospitals but that time sheets were being checked and whether strikers would be paid for their time on strike would be decided by the government.

During an action on Friday dubbed "5 to 12" striking doctors and nurses stood outside hospitals around the country and union leader Ivica Babic said that the intention of the action was to show how many medical staff were actually striking and challenge the numbers supplied by the Ministry.

Babic invited Health Minister Rajko Ostojic to sit down with the unionists at the negotiating table this weekend and Ostojic expressed his readiness to renew social dialogue and negotiations with all three representative health sector unions.

Babic once again said that the aim of the doctors' and nurses' unions was for each union to sign a collective agreement for their membership and not for a third union to do so at their detriment.