Fourteen perioperative nurses from the National Oncology Institute (NIO) remain on sick leaves. Eleven of their colleagues who still come to work have been assigned to emergency surgeries and those most urgent planned ones. "We are forced to call off 20 surgeries a day and the patients will have to wait at least until next week," says NIO spokesperson Mariusz Gierej. Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Tuesday said the ministry was monitoring the situation and the NIO director was working on new rules of renumeration for employees.
Polish media reported on Monday (September 5) that all surgeries planned for that day at the National Oncology Institute in Warsaw had been called off because perioperative nurses had not come to work.
"Some of them are on sick leaves," said an NIO employee. The institute spokesperson Mariusz Gierej said on Monday that all surgeries of patients whose life was at risk were being carried out.
Tuesday was the second day of the informal protest of perioperative nurses, whose absence has paralysed the work of the operating theatre at the oncology institute. Under normal circumstances, approx. 40 operations are carried out every day.
Mariusz Gierej told tvn24.pl on Tuesday that only two of eleven operating rooms were being used - urgency one, used in life-threatening situations, which has to always be prepared, and one regular room. The remaining operating rooms are not being used at all.
Asked when the patients with surgeries scheduled for this week could expect the operations to take place, the spokesperson said that possibly next week, when the nurses will have already returned from sick leaves.
Health minister: we're monitoring the situation
At a press conference in Mysłakowice (Lower Silesian Voivodeship), Health Minister Adam Niedzielski was asked about the crisis situation at the Warsaw Oncology Institute.
"We are monitoring the situation at the National Oncology Institute in Warsaw. Protests in the form taking sick leaves has takan place there," the minister said.
Niedzielski added that the NIO director, Prof. Jan Walewski, had declared he was on new rules of renumeration for employees.
He also said that members of other professions at the Institute had agreed to wait for the new wages proposal and that the government was working on a financial relief package that would be addressed to hospitals mostly affected by the minimum wage increase.
"But I would like to say clearly that in the case of the Institute we are not talking about minimum wages, as the wages increase expected by perioperative nurses is nearly 3,000 zlotys - that's really big money," Niedzielski said.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: TVN24