Health workers take pay dispute to national conciliator

Pay talks between Estonia’s health worker unions and employers have ended without an agreement, and the dispute will now go to a national conciliator, ERR reports. Nurses and doctors say staff shortages are already severe and could worsen if wages are frozen.

A conciliation meeting on Wednesday made no progress, the unions said, because Social Affairs Minister Karmen Joller was again unable to meet with representatives of health workers and healthcare providers.

The Health Insurance Fund’s budget for next year still does not include a pay rise for healthcare workers. Although the state is not legally a party to the collective agreement, unions say an agreement cannot be reached without state funding. They say the minister’s participation is essential because the ministry is responsible for organising and financing healthcare.

The collective agreement covers more than 20,000 workers, including nurses, care workers, midwives, doctors, clinical psychologists, speech therapists, physiotherapists, support specialists and ambulance workers.

Nurses’ Union president Kätlin Lillemaa said one fifth of healthcare workers currently hold multiple jobs, mainly because of pay. She said nurses and care workers work nights and weekends and care for people at critical moments. If exhausted workers leave the sector, she warned, the healthcare system could collapse.

Ulvi Tasane, president of the Estonian Health Workers’ Professional Union, said pay rises agreed in previous collective agreements had significantly reduced nurses’ emigration. She warned that nurses could again seek work abroad, noting that many job offers from other countries had arrived in recent months.

Medical students’ association president Klaus Martin Klettenberg said cancelling a pay rise would also threaten the supply of future doctors. The unions also raised concerns about simultaneous changes to ambulance services, rehabilitation and assistive devices, the integration of healthcare and social services, and the move to electronic consultations for specialist referrals. They said the aims were sound but that the planned implementation could make care harder to access because of staff shortages.

Doctors’ Association president Neeme Tõnisson said healthcare needed stability and room for staff to work. The appeal was signed by the nurses’, health workers’, doctors’, clinical psychologists’, clinical speech therapists’ and physiotherapists’ associations.