White Poverty

Dr. Leposava Milicevic, Serbia's Health Minister, is on sick leave, doctors are on strike, and the Government does not want to negotiate with the Serbian Health and Social Care Union which has been in charge of the protest as of 20 May. When Dr. Milicevic became minister, she was considered "big mama" (doctors regularly received salaries thanks to her). This time she addressed the public via state-controlled media a day before the strike, on 19 May. She informed the doctors and the public that the salaries would arrive the next day, increased by 30 percent. There was no extra money in the budget and insisting on a higher basic salaries would lead to inflation. Then she fell ill. Not everybody got the rise and the mentioned 30 percent was a compensation for the working conditions - 20 percent for January and 10 percent for the current month. The compensation for February, March and April was simply skipped.

"We intend to fight for higher pay and I think and hope that we shall go all the way. We abide by the law on strike, provide the minimum of work," said Dr. Jasminka Kupresanin, the president of the Belgrade board of the Health and Social Care Union.

Out of 16 health care centres in Belgrade, eleven are on strike. Out of four clinical centres, only one is not on strike (Bezanijska kosa). According to the health care law, children's hospitals and urgent medical help centres may not go on strike. Out of 32 thousand health and social workers, 19 thousand are on strike.

The tormented health care with its old equipment functions by inertia. In certain hospitals in Serbia, patients have to bring their own bed linen. Hospitals are short of medical supplies and producers have threatened to completely stop the delivery because of unpaid bills. The supplies of gloves and other materials and cleaning liquids have been reduced down to the minimum. Of over one hundred ultrasound machines, only one or two work properly. Patients wait for months to be examined. It is even more complicated and expensive to be examined by a scanner.

Head of Serbia's health care union, Dr. Stevan Djordjevic explained why, when speaking about the strike, they decided to use the figures which referred to the regions: "We must not make lists, because the people are then exposed to repression by directors who get daily instructions from the government what to do. But I claim that the strike is spreading out and that over half of the people in Serbia's health care are on strike." He gives his own example. He is a doctor, specialist, with 23 years of experience. With the above mentioned 30 percent, he received an equivalent of 300 German Marks. In September 1994, when the economic situation was much worse, but Avramovic had already taken office, he received 405 German Marks.

Doctors and nurses decided to start from themselves and say that they were on strike only because they were poorly paid. The strike list included only one demand: instead of 160 dinars, they demand that the basis should be between 223 and 247 dinars. They do not care about the government's problems, shortage of money, possible inflation, printing of money due to their demands.

The health workers' protest has not changed the everyday picture outside the central Belgrade health care center Stari Grad. The center, which employs also the president of the city board of the health care union, is not on strike. At five o'clock in the morning, the ill, half-ill and invalids queue up outside the building. Patients themselves collect their health-care cards, sort them according to doctors and maintain order. When the door opens at about seven o'clock, they rush inside, distribute the cards at different floors and the queues move inside. Once, the patients used to sit in the spacious hall of the health care center, but it now houses shops, pharmacies, opticians etc. The patients belong outside. It is easier now, as the weather is warmer.

The situation being as it is, the doctors are unlikely to get higher salaries any time soon. Since they are working while on strike, the government will have "understanding" for their protest, because the protest simply does not affect the government. Quite the contrary, the patients will mostly be taken care of, there will be fewer of them than usual, which means lower expenditure. The government will get a chance to surprise the pensioners with health care money, as was the case last month when 100 million dinars were taken from the health care for the pensions.

Antrfile

Never on Sundays

The story is an authentic one: it is a Sunday afternoon at the Urgent Medical Care Center in Belgrade. The place is crowded. A seventeen-year-old boy whose leg is injured is lying on a bed in the corridor. The doctor tells his father: "You know what it's like, we haven't got cotton wool and we need it to put your son's leg in plaster. Could you go to the nearest pharmacy and buy some." The man says that it is Sunday and that there are no pharmacies open nearby. The doctor asks: "Have you got a car, the nearest pharmacy is in Nemanjina street..." The man says: "No, my car was stolen yesterday."