Prague, Jan 6 (CTK) – Czech Health Minister Miloslav Ludvik (Social Democrats, CSSD) has gained 600 million crowns to raise the salaries of nurses as from the latter half of the year, the Zdravotnicky denik online health care daily wrote on Friday.
On Thursday, Ludvik and Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) reached agreement on raising the spending on health insurance fees the state pays for children, pensioners and the unemployed by a total of 3.5 billion crowns annually in 2018-20.
The increase is yet to be approved by the government.
“The increase in 2018 will be 4.1 billion crowns, but we will borrow 600 million crowns to raise the nurses’ salaries in the latter half of this year,” Ludvik told the daily.
Every nurse working in shifts in state-run health care facilities will have their pay raised by 2000 crowns monthly as from July 1.
The monthly per capita insurance the state pays for the above groups of inhabitants will rise by 50 crowns to 970 crowns in 2018.
Both Ludvik and Babis said the Thursday agreement was an acceptable compromise.
Babis said he wants to avoid a dispute over the increase similar to that he had with Svatopluk Nemecek (CSSD), whom Ludvik replaced on November 30.
