Healthcare workers demand 25% pay rise at government rally

Several hundred healthcare workers gathered outside Latvia’s Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday to demand a 25% pay rise for all healthcare staff in next year’s state budget, LSM reported. The protest drew attention to chronic underfunding and what organisers said was the government’s failure to address the sector’s prolonged crisis.

With placards, slogans and a stage, protesters called for adequate funding for healthcare. The union had initially sought a 30% increase but accepted a lower demand as a compromise.

Some workers said they had to hold multiple jobs to earn a living. Inta Sīka, a senior nurse at Vidzeme Hospital, said she worked at the hospital and then continued at a family doctor’s practice, often returning home at 9 or 10 p.m. “That is not a civilised life, and it is not the European standard,” she said.

Other protesters called for higher pay and warned that low wages were making it harder to attract young people to hospital work. One nurse said her salary had not increased since January 2019, while another said healthcare workers’ pay was falling behind average earnings in Riga.