Health Ministry opposes award for doctors' union head

Prague, Jan 28 (CTK) - The award of the Bravery Prize to Slovak Medical Trade Union (LOS) head Marian Kollar who organised mass departures of doctors from hospitals last year by the Czech Doctors Trade Union (LOK) is morally disputable, the Czech Health Ministry said Saturday.

The Health Ministry has voiced a position on the prize for the first time over the 15 years when it has been awarded.

The LOK will give the prize at a ball of the Czech Doctors' Chamber (CLK) this evening.

"It is almost incredible that in the civilised world someone can be awarded for such an immoral act, in particular if these are organisations associating doctors," Health Ministry spokesman Vlastimil Srsen said.

First Deputy Health Minister Marek Zenisek said the bravery prize should be given to the Czech military doctors who were used to replace the protesting Slovak doctors and treated patients instead of them.

For this, they were harshly criticised by the Slovak trade union.

Out of the total 6500 Slovak doctors, 3800 signed the declaration Notices in reaction to the government's rejection of their demands for higher salaries.

A total of 2,411 doctors from 34 hospitals really handed in their notices and hundreds of them did not come to hospitals on December 1.

Prime Minister Iveta Radicova's Slovak centre-right government then declared a state of emergency and asked the Czech Republic to send its doctors.

The LOK appreciated with the prize Kollar for a "successful struggle against destruction of the public health care system in Slovakia."

"His work also weakened the effort to destroy the system in the Czech Republic, too," Michal Sojka, from the LOK press department, has told CTK.

The state of emergency allows the government to call the protesting doctors back to work under the threat of criminal proceedings.

The Slovak trade unions eventually accepted the government's offer of a pay increase of 300 euros a month, or 30-percent of their base pay. Originally they demanded an increase of up to 700 euros a month.

The Slovak doctors were inspired by Czech doctors who secured a pay rise of 5000 to 8000 crowns gross per month within the union-sponsored campaign Thank You, We Are Leaving in February.

($1 = 19.142 crowns)